iWant You So Bad
by demondreaming
Summary: It's driving Sam crazy. These stupid feelings! They make everything so hard, and Carly isn't helping the matter, especially when she's the reason. Rated M for occasional, furious bouts of swearing and mature stuff. Cam.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: iCarly is not owned by me or any of subsidiaries. Also, I don't have any subsidiaries.**

I sit there and watch her. Just watch her sleep. And she looks so peaceful, hand curled under her chin, her breath slow and steady. And I bite my lip because I feel it again, that hot burst in my gut. I'm in love with her. I'm in love with Carly Shay. And admitting it doesn't make me feel better. It makes me feel worse, because she's my best friend and I shouldn't feel like this. But I can't help it. I can't help what she does to me. And I don't know whether it's better or worse that she doesn't know. Better, it's probably better that she doesn't. Yeah.

My eyes trace over her sleeping form. Her glossy brunette hair, her thick, black lashes. I linger on her lips, pink and full. And I know I shouldn't be watching her, even if it's just so I don't feel that churn in my stomach, but I can't stop. It's the only time I can look at her the way I want to, the way I _need_ to. I shake my head, clearing my thoughts and sigh, moving to the bed. I lift the blanket, slipping under. I put a hand under my head, pillowing my blonde curls. I'm so tired, but I'm not sleepy. It's her, she makes my brain buzz, makes this _thing_ throb deep inside me. She makes my eyes feel like hands. Even now I can smell her hair... coconut. And not too long ago I would've just thrown an arm around her and went to sleep. And it's not that I didn't feel it then, it's that I didn't realise that... it wasn't normal. It wasn't until I kissed Freddie that I started feeling this way. Because when I kissed him... I didn't feel anything. Nothing. And I started getting closer to Carly, and then she helped me get girly for Pete. And after I went on a few dates with Pete, I realised that I liked getting ready with her more than I liked going on the date. And it's like whenever I kissed Pete, I'd think of Carly. But I never put two and two together until recently. That, maybe, just maybe I was thinking of Carly because it was her I wanted to kiss... maybe it was her I wanted to go on a date with. And I realised that she made me feel more than anyone else ever did. I mean, sure, I didn't hate Freddie all the time, and I liked Spencer, but Carly made me feel good inside. Like I was worth something. She never looked at me like I was weird, or gross, or something she scraped off the bottom of her shoe. She looked at me like I was Sam Puckett, and that that meant something.

And once I started thinking about her like that... I couldn't stop. Things I'd never noticed before – like the way she'd toy with something on me, like my hair, or shoelaces, and it'd make my heart beat fast and my chest would feel all tight. All the little looks she gives me, to make sure I'm listening. The way her lips shine when she smiles at me. My heart beats so fast these days, I'm sure one day it's going to just pop out and splatter all over her.

I can't help touching her. Even if it kills me. I ease my body against hers, and I have to bite my lip when our bare legs touch. Her skin is smooth and hot, and it makes me shiver. My arm slides around her waist like it was made to, and my fingers brush her flat stomach. She stirs, taking a deep breath. "Mmm, Sam?"

I wish I hadn't woken her. Not when the feeling is so strong. Not when I've just been thinking about how I much I want her.

"Yeah?" I say softly, raising my head a little to look at her. She stretches a bit, making a soft sound that makes my heart stop, and then turns, rolling her body to face me. And her face is so close, _so_ _close_ to mine. Her lips part slightly, and I can feel her breath against my face and it smells minty, and all I can think is - how would she taste? She hugs me to her, snuggling her face into me, her hair tickling my chin, and I hug her lightly back. My breaths are short, and it's _torture_, but I wouldn't move for anything – not even a pound of bacon. My heart's pounding and I'm sure she must hear it, or at least feel it knocking into her head, but her breath slows again, and her hands relax around me. And there's _no way_ I can go to sleep now. Not with this throbbing between my legs. Not with her breath pushing against my neck and her fingers curled around my waist.

I hate this. Everything's become so... so damn _significant_. It's like everything she does means something, when I know it doesn't. It's torture, but it's so sweet. It freezes me. I can't tell her. But I can't pretend I don't feel it. If I tell her it'll stop. Her touching me that is. Everything's so innocent and sweet right now. If I tell her it'll change everything. But what if... what if she likes me back? Wouldn't that be better? Wouldn't that be great? Yeah, but what if she doesn't? What then? She'll look at me like everyone else does. She'll flinch when I touch her, look straight through me. Like I'm nothing. And if she thought that – if she thought that about me...

I sigh. Everything's so complicated, and I feel like I'm stuck in this web, and if I struggle the spider'll get me, but if I just hang here, I'll starve. And Carly's the spider. I tighten my grip on Carly, touching the soft, smooth skin just where her shirt ends. Might as well enjoy getting no sleep.

So I lie there, trying to ignore the feelings she stirs in me, because no matter how much I might want her... no matter how strong the feelings get, I won't let myself lose her.

Despite myself, I manage to fall asleep. I wake up to Carly giggling at me, shaking my shoulder lightly. "Sam, you're drooling!" She grabs my hands and pulls me up and I wobble, the cold air hitting my legs and arms and making me shiver.

I wipe my mouth, grinning back, "What am I supposed to do when Spencer's making bacon?"

Carly gives me a light push, "Uh, I dunno, maybe wake up first? You almost ate my pillow!"

I stretch, feeling the sun start to warm my bare skin. "Mmmm, well, you shouldn't have made your pillows so tasty."

Carly giggles again, turning away, and I'm stunned as always at how bouncy she is in the morning. I feel like the living dead... actually, brains don't sound too bad right now. My stomach rumbles in agreement and I pat it sympathetically. I look up, just in time to see Carly's shirt come off. My stomach rumbles again, and I shush it. Her back is so smooth and creamy, the skin flawless. And then she's putting on her bra, and I catch a glimpse of side-boob. I swallow hard. This isn't right. I tear my eyes away with difficulty, picking up my pants from beside the bed and shimmying them on.

Carly's hand touches the small of my back lightly and I jump, whirling around. Carly. Naked. Bra. Boobs. It's literally all that's running through my head on an endless cycle. And then my brain is screaming _Look at them! Look at the Carly boobs!_, and there's a rational part of me that's saying, _No, don't look at them! Don't do it!_ And neither part is winning, so I'm just standing there, hands on the waistband on my pants.

"What do you think?" I bring my eyes to Carly's face, and she's smiling.

"Wha- what? What do I think of what?" I swallow hard, my mouth feeling dry. I wipe my hands on my pants, my palms sweating.

Carly gestures at her chest, her brow getting that cute little furrow when she's thinks I'm being thick on purpose. My mind is racing, _What? Does she want to know what I think of her boobs? I mean, I think they're awesome, but what the _hell_ is going on here! Quick, answer her!_

"Ah... um... bwaaa..." _Smooth. Real smooth. I'm leaving._

She giggles, rolling her eyes. "My bra! I went to Build-A-Bra last week. What do you think?"

I can't seem to unglue my eyes from her chest. It really is a very nice bra. Really brings out her—assets. Quite the brassiere. I lick my lips. "Um... nice! It's really nice! I like the way it... cups." I almost sob the last word. Damnit! Why do I always go to pieces around her? I'm just lucky she's thinks it's adorable. And that it's just Sam being all goofy again.

I become aware she's giving me an odd look, flicking glances at my waist and back up at me. She sighs. "Here." She grabs hold of my pants, buttoning them and running the zipper up smoothly, and my hips jerk towards her. I feel my stomach muscles twitch when her hand brushes them, and I bite my lip, trying to think unsexy thoughts. Powerlines. Old nuns. Freddie. I relax. That last one did it.

She frowns at me, the edge of a smile in it. "What's with you this morning? You're all... jumpy."

I put a hand to my chin thoughtfully, "I'm thinking of being a kangaroo. Y'know, hippity hop."

She laughs, pulling a shirt on. Her head pops through and she looks at me seriously for a moment. Christ she's beautiful. "You're sure you're okay?"

I nod eagerly, rubbing the back of my head, "Yeah, sure. I... I just had a bad dream, is all."

Carly makes a mock sad face, "Aww, did big, strong Sam have a bad dream? Was I in it?"

"You're always in my dreams." Shit. Did I just say that out loud? Fuck.

Carly looks at me oddly, tilting her head. "Really?"

I swallow hard, avoiding her eyes. "Yeah, I mean, we spend so much time together and... y'know."

She looks away for a second, eyes flicking back to me, "So does that mean you dream about ham as well?"

My stomach growls loudly and I nearly collapse in relief. For once my appetite was going to save me. Carly laughs and pats it. "I'll take that as a yes."

I follow her downstairs, still feeling where her warm hand rested on my stomach.

**A/N: So, I wrote this _ages_ ago, around the time of my first fics... but I never published it because I got all caught with other stories. I've only written a few chapters, but hopefully this'll whip me into writing more. So please, review! Whip me!**

**...And I mean that in a completely non-sexual way. 0_0**

**...**

**Oh, who am I kidding? It's me we're talking about. Of course it's sexual!**

**But in a tasteful way, like glamour photography.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: Look, if you track down Dan Schneider and bring him to me, I shall assimilate in his image and make the best damn show there ever was.**

"Sam, you actually showed up for rehearsal?"

I throw myself down on the couch, dropping my backpack on the ground.

"Eh, my mom's got her new boyfriend over, and he says 'everything in quotation marks'." I gesture with my fingers.

Carly frowns, laughing. "What a nub."

I nod, propping my feet up on the coffee table and grabbing the remote. And then Carly's in front of me, hands on her hips.

"Remote Sam." She makes a grab for it and I yank it away.

"C'mon, just Seattle Beat!"

Carly makes another grab, leaning over me, "No way Sam, rehearsal means... well, it means no watching TV!"

I hold the remote away further, laughing. "Well come on. Come get it!" I wave the remote at her teasingly.

She moves back, smiling. "What, you think I won't?"

I grin, "I don't think you're man enough Shay."

She pouts before lunging at me, and the smile falls from my face. Because she's climbing on top of me, straddling me. She's reaching for the remote, my hand instinctively jerking it further away, and her body presses against me hard as she strains to get it. And somehow it's worked out that Carly's rack is _right_ in my face, rubbing against my cheek, and I can sense how soft they are, and her thighs are brushing mine and her body is-

"Got it!" She moves off me, clutching the remote triumphantly. I let out a long breath I hadn't realised I'd been holding.

Carly giggles at me, "Why're you breathin' all heavy Sam?"

I swallow hard, taking a deep breath and smiling weakly, "'Cause you just about suffocated me with your boobs!" ...what? It's not entirely a lie, I _was_ having trouble breathing and her breasts _were_ involved.

Carly looks down at herself, grinning. "I know! I'm growing up!"

I pull myself off the couch, straightening my shirt before holding my hands up in defeat. "Okay, you win. I'll rehearse or whatever!"

Carly looks surprised, setting the remote down, "Really? That was easy!"

I smirk, shooing her towards the stairs, "I'm glad attempted murder is so easy for you Carls."

She laughs, heading up the stairs, "Oh, come on Sam, you know you loved it!"

I freeze, hand on the banister. Does she know? No, there's no way... but what if she does? No. She'd be freaking out if she did, I know her, if she knew she'd be freaking. Then why did – no, she's just teasing. That's gotta be it.

"Sam?" Carly pauses, turning to look back at me, "You coming?"

I give my head a little shake. Come on Puckett, focus! "Yeah, I'm comin'."

"And now for another instalment of 'The Cowboy And The Idiot Farmgirl Who Thought The Cowboy's Mustache Was A Squirrel'." Announced Freddie, flipping a page of his script.

I hate this play. Well, it wasn't the play, it was Carly. Not that I hate Carly, no – god no, in fact it was entirely the opposite – no, I just hate the way she looks at me. All flirty-like. It makes my heart pound so hard. I sigh, smoothing out my mustache and looking hesitantly at Carly. Ugh, there went my heart again.

"Is it friendly?" Said Carly in her perky airhead voice,

"Is what friendly missy?" I did my best Southern drawl, running my finger down the script and glancing up at Carly.

"Your squirrel!" Carly giggles.

I sigh, "There is nary a squirrel upon my face. This," I gesture, "Is a mustache."

"Does your squirrel like kisses?"

I blink. "You must surely be an idiot, for there no squirrel 'pon my face, nor has there ever been."

Carly runs a finger over the mustache, her knuckles brushing my lips.

"Can I kiss your squirrel?"

Too much. It's too much. I can't – Carly's lips touch the mustache, pattering light, exaggerated kisses over it and she's so close. I'm so close. So close to kissing her.

My stomach drops and I groan, putting my hands to it. Carly pulls back, a concerned look on her face. "You groaned."

"Guys, I'm not finding this in the script..."

Carly ignores Freddie, putting a hand to my face. I groan again. Can't...take...it. Her hand is soft, so warm...

"Sam?" Carly's voice is soft, worried, "Are you okay?"

My breath shudders out. "I think... I need... to sit down." I jerk myself away from her with effort, and collapse on a beanbag, stripping the mustache from my lip. Stupid mustache. Stupid play. Stupid stomach.

Stupid heart.

"Freddie, I'm cancelling rehearsal. Sam's sick."

Freddie sighed angrily, "C'mon Carly, she probably just licked another swingset."

"Shut it Fredbag, or I'll lick you!" I snap, rubbing my stomach uneasily.

"You wish!"

Carly walks over to me, kneeling beside me and giving Freddie an annoyed look. "Freddie!" She turns back to me, "Are you okay?"

I force a tight smile and nod, unable to look at her. It hurts my tummy when I do.

Carly looks downcast, her eyebrows knitting together. "Freddie, get Sam some water."

"But Carly-" Freddie protested.

"Just do it." Carly sighs, turning away from him as Freddie left. She studies me intently, and I feel my skin crawling. She purses her lips finally, "Sam, what's going on?"

"N-nothing." I curse silently. Why did I have to stutter?

She leans closer, her voice lower, "Sam, I know something's wrong. What is it? You can tell me."

I shuffle back in the beanbag, trying not to make it obvious. Dammit. Why can't I ever lie to her? It's usually so easy, but with her, it's like the words dry up in my mouth. My mouth opens and these words... not even words, these broken, stalling sounds come out and Carly's looking at me expectantly, waiting to help me with my problem. Except my problem is her.

"Um, guys?" I feel a rush of relief. I think it's the only time I've ever been happy that Freddie _entered_ a room. I scramble out of the bean bag, dashing over to Freddie and grabbing the glass.

"Thanks Freddie," I gulp it down, ignoring Freddie's frightened face, "Ah, that's better. "

"Sam!" Carly looks pissed, and I twist the empty glass in my hands, avoiding her gaze. She sighs and turns, picking up the script. "Let's just keep going."

I hate to let her down, but what else can I do?

**A/N: Now, I'm just gonna try something here, okay. Watch the coin, watch as it spins back and forth. It's pretty, isn't it?**

**How are you feeling? Yes... that's perfect. Now, I want you to review, to tell me all good things and sugar and spice. How do you like the awkward moments? Do they make you squirm and squee?**

**We have pills for that, we can fix that. But the question is, do you want more?**

**When I snap my fingers, you will make a sandwich. And a damn good one too. Hypnotising is hard work.**

**That... that was kind of creepy. I blame the music I'm listening to. :P**


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: iCarly... I always think I, Robot. They should do a parody of those movies... and then a porno parody. And then I'll write fan fic about _that_.**

"Sam, why won't you tell me?"

I shift uncomfortably on Carly's sofa, toying with the remote. It's after rehearsal, and I thought Carly'd forgotten about it... she didn't say anything when Freddie was here. Carly's giving me her intense, x-ray stare, but I'll be damned if I show her my bones. Some things are better left unseen. "Can we just drop it?"

She takes the remote from me, sighing, her hand brushing mine and leaving goosebumps. She doesn't even realise, she doesn't even _know_ what she does to me. How can something _not_ be wrong? "I thought we were past this Sam. I thought we agreed; no more secrets."

I look away. I did promise that, and unlike most of my promises, I actually meant it. "I'm not keeping secrets. I swear on my mother's grave."

"Your mom isn't dead. Is she?"

Sometimes, Carly's so easy to distract. I shrug. "I dunno. Could be."

Carly frowns at me. "So you're not gonna tell me?" She says, raising an eyebrow.

I raise my hands. "Nothing to tell."

She nods slowly, sighing. "That's what I was afraid of. Alright, c'mere."

Carly grabs my hand, pulling me to my feet unwillingly and tugging me over towards the stairs. "C-carly?" I manage to stammer. She... she's holding my hand. She doesn't even know. Oh God, there's that stupid rabbit heart of mine again. Dammit! It's just a hand! It's not like I haven't held her hand before.

_Yeah, and how much do you think about all those times? _I will my brain to shut up. It's not helping, and it never does, or maybe I'd pay more attention in school.

I stumble up the stairs, struggling to make some kind of vocal protest. Oh. Her hand is so soft. I can't stop myself... I twist my hand in hers a little, my fingers entwining with hers. Carly pauses, looking back at me before tightening her grip and pulling me forward again. She pulls me into her room, pushing me ahead of her. "Carly... what-?"

She locks the door behind her, leaning against it, and I feel the words dry up in my mouth. My mind is telling me what this looks like, what it wants it to be, and it's so fucking stupid! My brain's the one that's supposed to be reasoning, telling me that of course this isn't what it looks like, and my heart's just clapping it's hands together, cheering my brain on. Because what it looks like, my palms sweating, is like what I've seen in movies, where someone gets dragged to a bedroom and confesses their feelings. And then there's usually a sex scene.

Carly's looking at me strangely, and I try to rein myself back. My imagination is going wild, and I wipe my hands on my pants, crossing my arms. I lick my lips. "Carly, what are you doing?"

She crosses her arms, mirroring me. "You're gonna tell me what's wrong Sam." She smirks at me, circling around me.

I turn to follow her. "There's nothing wrong! Why won't you believe me!"

She steps up to me, stroking my cheek before pulling her hand back and rubbing her fingers together. "'Cause you're sweating."

I swallow hard, still feeling her fingers, cool on my cheek. "It's hot in here." I watch her carefully as she turns away from me, bowing her head.

"Sam..." She turns back, sighing. She freezes. "_Sam!_"

I pause from where my fingers are on the knob. Dammit, I should've been faster. "Uh... " My mind's a blank. Oh sure, and you were so talkative before!

Carly takes a cautious step towards me and I look quickly between her and the door. She puts her hands up. "Okay Sam, just relax... let go of the doorknob." I look wistfully at the knob, the steel cool under my hand. "Just back away and- _now!_" Carly leaps forward, and I fumble with the lock. Dammit! All I do is pick locks all day! This one doesn't even need a key! Carly grabs me around the waist, trying to squirm between me and the door. I try even harder... _so... close_... Carly's arms around me; they're making my stomach churn in all sorts of ways.

"Why did you shout 'now'? We're the only ones here!" I manage to grunt confusedly, still struggling. Somehow her legs get tangled in mine and I fall backwards, hitting the ground with a thud, the breath knocked from me.

Before I even have time to regain it, Carly's crawling on top of me, pinning my arms above my head. This... I can't... why? _Why_? I was already winded! How am I supposed to breathe now?

I can't stop from my eyes from running over her figure... she's leaning over me and it's so... it's so... _ngh_. I... I think I'm panting. I don't know. I can't tell. Am I alive? Yes. Oh God yes. No, I am. Why does this keep happening? Why can't she just let it go?

I can feel where her knees are pressing into my sides, her hands on my wrists, and I could push her off, so easily, if she was anyone else but her. She seems a little surprised that I haven't done so already. "Sam! Tell me what's wrong!"

"N-n-n-"

She narrows her eyes are me. "And don't say nothing!" She leans on me harder, more of her body brushing against me, and I feel my hips push up into her slightly. I struggle to say a real word, anything to get her off me. She has to feel that, she has to feel me pushing up against her. Oh, oh, oh shit.

"N-n-nightmares!" I manage to force out, gasping and trying to stop my traitorous hips. Please, please don't push up against her, I know it feels so good, but... oh. It feels so good.

Carly releases my wrists, sitting back. It's marginally better. It puts more pressure on my hips anyway, and keeps them firmly grounded. "Nightmares?" Carly says in a confused voice. She moves off me and I let out a huge breath, not sure how I even managed to take it in the first place. I sit up, and it feels weird. My body... it feels different, and maybe it's 'cause I'm a little turned on or just... I don't know. It's like it's a dog, pricking it's ears at the scent of her.

I push my hair away from my face. The best thing is just to ignore it. Thinking about how I'm turned on while Carly is here will only turn me on more, and it's hard enough as it is. Heh, hard enough. It sounds dirty.

Carly sits on her chaise, her hands clasped together. I get up, dusting myself off and sitting at the other end. I don't want to be too close to her. Well, I do, but that's the problem. She looks over at me. "Are they like the ones where the monster tried to steal your soup?"

I twist my mouth. I guess they sort of are. My therapist said those dreams were about Carly anyway, that I was scared of losing her to Griffin, or some crap like that. And I wasn't entirely lying when I said I was having nightmares now. I dream that I tell her, and it's like it's real, because I'm just as scared in the dream as I would be in real life. And she rejects me. She yells at me, tells me get to get out and never speak to her again. So yeah, that's my worst nightmare. I won't tell her about the sex dreams though. "Sort of." I say with a dry mouth.

Carly leans back, crossing her legs. "Well... tell me about them. Like... this morning's one, what was that?"

That? Oh, that was me thinking I was gonna explode into little Sam chunks. I study my shoes intently, chewing my lip. "D-do you think we'll always be friends?"

Carly frowns. "Of course."

"Do you think there's anything we could say or... or do that'd change that?" It's a stupid question, because she doesn't know what I'm thinking of saying or doing.

Carly tilts her head, thinking. "I don't think so. Is that what your nightmares are about? Us not being friends anymore?"

I turn my head away from her. Stupid move. Carly's scooting over, hugging me, squeezing my shoulder comfortingly. Except it's not comforting, it's reminding me why I love her so damn much.

"Sam, that's never gonna happen. Fate brought us together, and it's gonna keep us together."

I force a smile. She had to say something like that. I've always had our doubts about our friendship... not on my side, but on hers. I couldn't... I _still_ can't see why she'd ever like me. It used to comfort me when she said it was fate... but not anymore. If I was meant to be with her, it wouldn't be this hard. It's not fate, it's luck, and I'm not about to do anything to change that. "Thanks, Cupcake." I say sincerely, but it's not this I'm saying thank you for. It's for all the other things she's done.

She smiles back at me, releasing me. It's a relief. "Why was that so hard to tell me?"

_'Cause it's a lie. _"Just... you know, I have a reputation to uphold."

Carly shakes her head. "Not around me you don't. We're best friends Sam, we can tell each other anything. It's one of the perks."

_Not anything_. If she was my best friend I could tell her everything, anything. I'm _her_ best friend, but she's not mine. She's more than that, and you'd think that'd mean more honesty, but it just means there's more to hide. It just means there's a lot more at stake.

It just means I have to keep lying to her, and hope she never finds out. It's a lot easier to say that nothing could break us up than it is to do. And that's why her words don't comfort me, because there's a good chance they're lies too, she just doesn't know it yet.

**A/N: So, from what I'm guessing, you guys love awkward moments. And hilarious A/N's. You just want everything don't you? Well go ahead! Take everything! Take my _blood_! Well... actually no. I need that.**

**Look, I don't know much about 'humour' or 'comedy' or 'no means no', but I do know about being mentally unbalanced, and it's much the same.**

**But what I do know is awkward moments, like the time I walked in on my grandmother doing a striptease. For my birthday. While my friends were there. At my request.**

**Luckily, you can use bleach on eyes now. I would've read the warning label but for some reason my eyes were burning.**

**I get distracted. So review, and I'll work on dredging up that feeling of awkwardness that is so prescient in my past. And present.**

**...And most likely future.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: iCarly, much like the Statue Of Liberty, is a gift from France, and is made of a copper... okay. I don't own it. I'll be quiet now.**

"I don't think you can kiss Sam."

I snap out of my daze from where I'm reclined on Carly's couch, half-watching _Girly_ _Cow_. Freddie's chatting to Carly over near the counter, and I'd been successfully tuning him out until now. I fix my attention on them... there's no way I heard Fredbag right.

"Why not?" Carly says, confusion on her face.

I roll onto my stomach, facing them better. There's no way. I wish I'd been paying attention.

Freddie shifts uncomfortably. "Because it's too much like kissing her."

Carly stares at Freddie blankly. "I'm not following. I thought that was the whole idea."

"The idea was to kiss her squirrel, yeah, and it was fine in theory. But in practice it looks more like you're... well, kissing Sam."

Carly looks taken aback. "I didn't even think..." She bites her lip, her eyebrows furrowing pensively.

"Hey, none of us did." Freddie says comfortingly.

I don't say a word. I thought that... I couldn't _stop _thinking that. Carly looks over to me, and I try to pretend I'm still watching TV. "Sam, what do you think?"

I swallow hard. What I'm about to do goes against everything I believe in. I'm about to agree with Freddie. I don't mind the thought of Carly kissing me, in fact, it's one of my favourite thoughts. But I can't do that again, I can't have her lips so close to me, kissing _just_ above my lips. It was hard enough the first time. "I actually agree with Fredwad." Oh. That can't be good for me. "It does kind of look like you're... you're kissing me." My voice comes out unevenly.

Freddie looks surprised. "You... you agree with me?"

My stomach is not having a good week. "Don't remind me."

Carly looks disappointed. I've always backed her up before, usually without even thinking about it, but this... this is different. "What are we gonna do to replace it?"

Freddie's face turns thoughtful. "Well... Gibby said he learned a new dance. Maybe he-"

I wave a hand at Freddie, cutting him off. "We'll think of something."

–

"Why didn't you say something?" Carly says curiously, coming to sit beside me on the couch. I turn the TV down and shift to face her. I swear, I practically live here now. Freddie's gone home, so it's a lot nicer than usual to be here.

"Say something about what?" Carly's vague like that sometimes. She expects you to know what she's talking about, just because she's thinking about it.

"About the play."

I blink at her. We stopped talking about this ages ago... I thought Carly was over it, but it's obviously stuck in her mind. "W-what do you mean?" I stutter. This is dangerous ground, and I'm barefoot.

Carly shrugs. "It's just you agreed with Freddie, so you must've thought that when we were doing it. Why didn't you say anything?"

"I...I..." My mind is a blank. It's a piece of paper soaked in bleach and left in the snow. It'd be great if I wanted to meditate, not so good when I'm trying to figure out a way to tell Carly that I didn't say anything because I was too busy physically restraining myself from _actually_ kissing her. "I thought it was just me."

Carly looks at me oddly, and my stomach twists. "If you were uncomfortable you could've said something. I mean, the last thing I want to do is kiss you."

Fuck. I can't help but wince, Carly catching it. She waves her hands at me frantically. "No no, no no. I didn't mean... I mean if you were a guy I'd... I just- That's not what I meant." She puts a hand to her forehead, sighing. I know she didn't mean it like that, but it reminded me that it _is_ like that. That she wouldn't... she wouldn't want to kiss me.

Carly pulls her knees up onto the couch, hugging them and resting her chin on them. "Sam, what's happening?" She sounds so lost, it snaps me out of my pessimistic thoughts.

"What do you mean?"

She looks over at me sullenly, and I feel an urge to hug her, to comfort her. "You don't tell me anything anymore."

"I told you about my nightmares." _Even though they were a lie_. She has a point though, I'd just hoped she hadn't noticed. But of course she has, Carly's perceptive. Once you hide one thing, you have to hide everything connected with it, so no one would ever suspect you hid anything in the first place. And it means that being in love with Carly... it infects everything I do, so I have to bandage that up too and pretend that the infection isn't spreading.

"I had to literally pin you on the ground for you to tell me." Carly says flatly. She sighs again, biting her lip and glancing at me apprehensively. "Do you not trust me anymore?"

I almost have to fight back incredulous laughter, leaning forward. "No! No, Carls... you're the only one I _do_ trust."

Carly reaches over impulsively, taking my hand in hers and raising it, uncurling my loose fist and splaying my fingers out. I swallow hard; the sensation of her fingertips brushing over the sensitive skin on my palm is making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. She presses her hand flat against mine, matching our fingers up. She studies our hands carefully. Her fingers are just a little longer than mine. "I just..." She says slowly, wistfully. "I feel like we're drifting apart." She takes her hand away, and I lower my arm hesitantly, my palm tingling.

Carly looks downcast. "Sam, I love you _so_ much."

I think my blood has frozen in my veins. Every time she says it, it hurts a little more. My brain knows what she means, but my body just hears 'love' and goes crazy.

"I just want things to be like they used to be."

I have nothing I can say. I wish things were the way they used to be as well. I wish I didn't feel like this about her. I wish that nothing had changed, that I still loved her as a friend and nothing more. But I can't escape it. I've tried so many times to quash how she makes me feel, but it just keeps springing back again and again, no matter how hard I try to ignore it, and it makes me stutter and sweat and say stupid things around her. It makes me lie to her, hide things from her.

I want to feel like I can say anything again, and know that she won't judge me, that it won't change how she feels about me, but I can't, because all the things I have to hide are about her.

I want to be able to promise her that things'll be like they were, but it's a promise I can't keep. I can't reassure her, I can't make her feel better, not with the truth.

"Things change Carls." I pick at the seam of my pants, glancing at her. "I wish they didn't but they do. I l-love you, you know that. You're my best friend in the whole world. Nothing's ever gonna change that."

Carly nods slowly, looking disappointed. "But why can't you tell me this stuff? You know whatever it is, I'll understand."

That's what I've always loved about Carly. She's always just accepted me as I am. And she makes it so hard to resist telling her. But it's _this, _it's _this_ type of stuff that I can't lose. She makes me feel like I can tell her anything, and the irony is, it's one of the things that have made it so I can't. Her being so accepting, so understanding; it's a part of the reason I fell in love with her, and it's made it so where I _could _tell her anything before, I can't tell her this. It hurts my brain, going round in circles. I want to tell her, I do, but once it's done, it's done. There's no, 'Surprise!' or 'April Fool's!', once I've told her - that's it. Everything changes. The best case scenario? She loves me. The worst? She hates me. The most likely? She's shocked, but she treats me like she treats Freddie and doesn't let me get too close to her. At least if I don't tell her I can pretend there's a chance she'll love me, at least then I don't know for sure.

Carly takes a deep breath. "I know. Things change. I just never thought we would, y'know?"

Dammit. Does she even realise how bad she's making me feel? I already feel guilty for keeping this stuff from her.

I want to tell her. Not everything, but something. I want to tell her without telling her, because at least then I can deny it. If she guesses, I can at least see what she thinks of it. And I can still escape.

At least I won't feel so guilty.

All I need to do is tell her something. The difficulty is gonna be in not telling her everything.

**A/N: I know, this chapter wasn't full of wriggly, squirmy, in-the-pants moments. But I'm trying to think of the people who read this from the beginning, cumulatively. It'd get overwhelming, all that tension...**

**Also, I've gotta build a plot sometime. So don't worry, your awkward moments are coming back, they've just taken a small hiatus in which to become more excruciatingly awkward. They were children then. When they come back, they'll be the most awkward creature known to man – the teenager.**

**So review, just 'cause you love me/it. Pwease?**

**Oh my. How low I've sunk.**

**Still, review though.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: iCarly, fo-farly to-tarly po-parly arly- no, I don't own it.**

"Carly... can I tell you something?"

Carly looked up, her toothbrush freezing mid-brush. She spits in the sink, rinsing her mouth out and wiping it before turning to me. "Sure. What is it?"

I sit on her bed, cross-legged, toying with my shoelaces. "Um... it's..." I bite my lip. I've been thinking all afternoon. What can I tell her? What can I tell her that I'm scared to? It can't be everything, obviously... but I have to not want to. I have to know that I'm telling her despite my fear, because she's my friend and she deserves to know. It has to mean something.

She walks over to me, sitting on the bed, "Hey, are you sleeping over tonight?"

"Uh... I don't know... Carly, this... this is kinda important."

I hear the worry in her voice. "Okay. What is it?"

I flick my eyes up to her briefly. She's concerned. Of course she is. I'm never unsure. I never used to be. But how can I be sure around her? Every moment I'm with her I'm scared I'm going to do something, and this moment seems a lot more likely than all the others. This is dangerous, but I have to show her. I have to show her that I still trust her. I can't tell her a lie, not to Carly. It's dangerous, but if I tell her this big thing, maybe she'll stop asking, maybe she'll stop thinking I'm hiding something. It's dangerous, but it's a calculated risk. "I- we're best friends right?"

Carly nods. "Yeah..."

I swallow hard. "So we shouldn't keep secrets from each other."

"Right."

"A-and... it's just... I've never told anyone, but..."

Her hand touches my knee softly, stopping my fidgeting. This was a bad idea. Secrets are good. Secrets are safe.

"Sam, you know you can tell me."

I take a deep breath, closing my eyes. I can't do this. It's too close... it's too close to the truth and I can't. No. I have to. She deserves to know. I have to know. "I... I think I'm gay." I can feel the adrenaline washing through my veins, and it's telling me to 'Run! Run!' and making me shake on the bed.

I hear Carly's breath whoosh out. I sneak a glance at her, terrified, and her eyes are wide, her mouth in a big 'O'. "Ohhhhh-kay." She nods slowly, pressing her lips together. She chews her lip, looking at me, and I feel pinned.

"So... you like girls."

I smile nervously, shrugging. I mean... maybe I'm not gay. I don't know. All I know is that I'm in love with Carly, that she makes me feel more than any guy I've ever been with, and that she happens to be a girl. I don't know if I could ever feel like this about anybody else. I think it's just Carly... if she was a guy, I think it'd be the same. It's hard to know though. I mean... I guess I've always sort of liked girls more than guys, but in that way? The way I feel about Carly? Not even close. Nothing compares to that. "Yeah. Pretty much."

She nods again, pursing her lips. "How- how long have you known?"

I feel a rush of relief burst through me. She's not kicking me out. She's asking questions, she's not revolted by me. Not that I thought she would be, but... you never really know. "I- I guess I always have, sort of. I just never realised it until recently."

"What about Pete? And Freddie?"

I twist my mouth. "I... I tried. But... have you ever kissed someone and it's like... there's nothing, no spark... it's just," I gesture with my hand, searching for the words. "Blah."

She nods, her brow furrowed. "So how do you know it'd be different with a girl? Have you... you know, kissed one?"

I shrug, toying with my shoelaces again. "No. But... I don't know. It's just- it's just the way I feel. I've... I've sort of always liked girls more."

My heart's in my throat, hoping she won't ask what girls I've liked. 'Cause I know she's taking it well and all, but I think that might be too much. And I- I can't do that. But she just nods. The adrenaline is still racing through my veins, my fingers trembling from where they tug at my shoelaces, trying to busy themselves. Carly studies me, a little wrinkle between her eyes, like something isn't quite right. Oh. Oh no. No... I shouldn't have told her. She knows... she has to. Fuck. Why'd I have to tell her? I swallow hard. I want to run, so badly, but I'm paralysed with fear. Oh God.

Carly's hand covers my own fidgeting one, stilling it, and I look up at her, steeling myself. Her eyes flick over my face, confused. Hurt. "You're really scared, aren't you?"

I smile shakily, but it feels false, doesn't even feel like a smile, more of a grimace. I still can't breathe. I tear my gaze away from her again, looking at where her hand is covering mine. I try to engrave it to my memory, how warm her hand is, how soft, her fingers filling the gaps between mine subconsciously.

"Sam..." Carly puts her hand under my chin, forcing my head up to look at her. Oh. She's making things so much worse, so much harder. My heart can't take much more. It hurts so much. I can't look at her. I don't want to. I hear the hurt in her voice. The curiosity. "Why were you so scared to tell me?" She lets go of my chin, but I can still feel her fingers there, burning the skin. "You know I'm not going to judge you." She frowns. "You do know that, right?"

I feel a rush of relief. She doesn't know, not yet, anyway. She's just hurt that I didn't tell her, that I didn't trust her. Fuck. She's hurt that I didn't tell her, that I didn't trust her. I can barely even hold myself up. All these emotions flooding through me is exhausting. Everything's all over the place, and I struggle to find my voice. "I- I- I've never told anyone. It's not... I didn't think you were going to judge me... but... but what if you did?" My voice is small. It's rare that I open up like this, that I let even Carly see how insecure I am. And for the most part, I'm not insecure. I don't care what people think, but I care what she thinks. She makes me insecure, because all I want is for her to like me, for her to love me. Everyone else can get fucked. All I want is her. She's the only thing in my life that I'm unsure about, and it wouldn't matter so much if she wasn't the most important thing in it.

Carly leans over, pulling me into a hug, and I shudder against her. I can't control myself... it's hard enough usually, but with this fucking rollercoaster of emotions I can't force myself to pretend it isn't her hugging me. Usually I imagine it's Spencer, mainly 'cause he's the only other person I can stand to hug. But I can't now. I'm fully aware that it's Carly's arms around me, hugging me tight to her, my own arms betraying me to circle around her. She's pressed against me so tight, and she's so warm, wearing only her ripped pyjama shirt and shorts. It's making me dizzy, and it just feels so right, so _good_. It's like a tranquilliser... it's calming me down, soothing me, but it's making my heart beat so hard. It's like a drug, hugging her, and it makes me wonder what it would be like to kiss her, if this is what just hugging her does to me? No, I can't... I can't even think about kissing her. Not now.

Carly's voice is soft, a hand stroking my hair. "It's okay Sam. You don't have to be scared. It doesn't matter to me if you like girls _or_ boys. It doesn't change the way I feel about you." She pulls back, keeping her hands on my shoulders, and I let her go reluctantly. She looks into my eyes sincerely, smiling. "Nothing will _ever_ change the way I feel about you, okay?"

I swallow hard. I hate how everything is significant, how everything she says means something other than what she intends. She's just confirming my worst fears; that she'll never feel the same way about me as I do about her. She's saying it to comfort me, but all it does is make me feel that much worse. I keep being reminded that I'm her best friend, and that's all. "I know." I say heavily, and I do know. She'll always think of me as a friend. And maybe it's for the best. I'd only fuck everything up anyway. I ruin everything I have as it is.

Carly scoots back, reassured that I'm better. She's easy to fool sometimes, for which I'm thankful. "So I'm the only one you've told?"

I nod. It's no one else's business. It's not like I want to be with _them_, so why would they need to know?

"I'm sorry, you know." She elaborates as she notices my confused look. "About being all whiny before. You don't have to tell me everything." Now she tells me? "I just... miss what we had before. But you're right, things change, and I have to accept that. There are things we can't tell each other, not because we don't want to, but just because they're private. So... thanks, Sam. Thanks for telling me. I know I sort of guilted you into it, but I had no idea... I mean, I never... I'm glad though. I'm glad you told me." She takes my hand, squeezing it, and I feel a smile play across my lips. I hate the way I feel around her, but I love the way she makes me feel. It might not make sense, but there it is.

So I've told her. I've come close to the truth, and I'm not sure how to feel about it. She didn't get mad, she didn't reject me... but she didn't declare her love for me, or for girls in general. Not that I expected her too, but... some stupid part of me hoped it'd be easy. She acted just like a best friend should. She accepted me, comforted me, and just made it that much more clear that I'm her best friend, that she loves without question. And I want her to question, I want her to question that love and turn it into 'in love'. I don't know if it was worth it, but it's safer now. I think... I hope.

**A/N: Please, review. You know how many Korean children slaved for pennies a day to write this for you? 74, that's how many.**

**If you review, I'll feed them too, and then they can write faster.**

**So yeah... now you know my dark secret. Child labour.**

**Oh, don't be so surprised. They do good work.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: iCarly, somehow, is still unowned by me. What's the deal guys? I thought we had that petition going!**

I think I spend most of my time at Carly's. There never seems to be a time I'm not there. Sometimes I go there when nobody's home, and pretend it's my apartment... that I live there with Carly. It's stupid... I don't do that anymore. I'm more mature now. The main reason I'm over there so often, is, of course, Carly. I'd be wherever she was. But there are some things I can't do at Carly's, and there's only so many clothes I can borrow and so many days before my mom notices I'm gone. It's not the last two I'm concerned about... it's more... I've spent all this time with Carly... and it's unbearable. To be so close to her, so near her every night. To go to sleep with my arms wrapped around her... it's torture. And the past few days haven't helped. It's like every time I'm with her she either ends up on top of me or ends up hugging me... or some strange mixture of the two. I can't take it anymore. I need some release.

Mom isn't home when I get there, as usual. I'm thankful, it means I can do this straight away, because I need to. It got so I was tempted to at Carly's but I'd never... I'd never do that. Knowing that she could walk in and see me... it's an exciting thought, but it also makes me feel sick. No, I've left her a message saying I can't come over tonight.

I make myself a sandwich, sniffing the ham before I slap it on the bread... still good. Well, close enough. I eat it on the way to my bedroom, kicking crap out of the way. I can already feel myself getting excited, just thinking about it. Thinking about her. I can finally think about Carly like I want, now that she's not here. I don't have to worry about seeing her and feeling weird. I can finally let my mind dwell on her, in the way it wants to. In the way it needs to. I push away all the painful stuff and focus on her, on how it feels when she touches me.

I sit down on my bed, wiping my hands on my pants, sandwich finished. Carly does it too. I fumble with the catch to my pants, tugging the zipper down and kicking my shoes off. She has to. I mean, I don't know for sure, but everyone does, right? I let the thought drift across my mind, the thought of Carly touching herself... moaning. I feel a sharp tug inside me, biting my lip. Oh Carly... I want to tell you so much how I feel, I do. But I can't. I'm Sam Puckett. I don't have these feelings, and certainly not for my best friend. No, the only time I think these things, let myself think of Carly... _that_ way is when I can't stand it any longer. When I need to feel that release. And I need so much to feel it. I can't stand it anymore. I slip under the covers of my bed, my skin bare and tingling. I just... need to feel her.

I skim my fingers over my body, raising goosebumps on the smooth skin as I move down, hand sliding over my stomach. She's in my head, she always is, but I can think those thoughts, feel those things that are so dangerous around her. I think about how close I came to kissing her, what it felt like to have her lips brushing over me, to have her so, so close.

I moan as my fingers come into contact with myself. I'm so sensitive, so on edge, so pent up. It's a relief to just touch myself, even lightly. I shudder, pressing my fingers harder against myself. It's a relief, but I want more.

It's wrong. I know it's wrong. It just happened one day. I was touching myself, feeling that pleasure flicker through me, and then she just popped into my head. It was like this pulse, this _burst_ of pleasure. It was one of the things that made me realise that how I felt about Carly wasn't normal. I tried so hard at first not to do it, not to think of her while I was doing... that. But the thought of her... it made it so, so much better, made it feel so good. It made me so ashamed to be around her, knowing that I'd come to the thought of her, moaned her name. She has no idea, no clue of the thoughts that run through my head, no idea how _good_ it feels. And I never want her to... _ever_.

I bite down on my lip to stifle a soft cry, remembering how it felt to have Carly pressed up against me, to have her straddling me. I let out a shuddery breath. I'm so wet for her, I can feel it... I can't stand this light rubbing anymore, images of Carly flitting through my head. I shut my eyes tight as I move my hand down, trying to pretend that it's Carly, that it's her fingers touching me. I whimper as my fingers push inside myself, slipping in easily. The way she makes my body react... no one, nothing has ever had the kind of effect on me that she does.

I'm already so turned on, so ready. It's been building and building over these past few days... it's made me distracted, made me scared to sleep with her at night because touching her was getting more and more unbearable. I was scared she'd see how turned on I was, how my breathing changes around her. She lights me on fire, and it feels so good to burn.

I bite back a moan, thrusting my fingers deeper, as deep as I can into myself, pretending it's Carly doing it, that her lips are on my neck, body pressed up against mine. That it's her inside me, whispering my name. My hips roll into my hand, wanting even more friction, pleasure building in me. I whimper Carly's name, my breath short. Oh god, Carly... I want you so much, I want you to do this to me, to hear your voice say my name, I'd give anything, anything just to hear you. I feel myself start to get close, stomach shivering, breath hitching and uneven. I move my fingers harder, unable to suppress the moans, breathless, sweat beading on my skin. Oh god, Carly... you feel so good inside me.

I flinch at the sound of my phone, rhythm faltering. Damn it. I stop... I can't keep going with that distraction... it just killed the moment. I roll over, scrabbling for my phone on the bedside table, I hear a beep and it stops ringing. Fuck. I hit the answer key. My eyes widen. Fuck. It's Carly. I can't hang up on her. Fuck.

"H-hello?" I say into the phone, trying to control my breathing... trying to keep the huskiness from my voice.

"Hey Sam... I got your message... why can't you come over?"

I swallow hard. I'm still out of breath, panting into the phone. God... I'm still throbbing. "I... I'm busy."

"Busy doing what? Have you been running?" _What have I been doing? Fucking myself and pretending it's you._ Oh God, her voice isn't helping. It's making me shiver. Ugh. "Sam, did you break the law again?"

I hear the annoyance in her voice. She hates it when I break the law... it's part of why I try to resist doing it. I try to calm myself down, squeezing my legs together. It lessens the throbbing a little. "No, no... I just... I've been working out... sort of." It's almost true...

"So you can't come?"

I lick my lips. Oh, if only knew what she was saying. If only I didn't have such a filthy mind. "Um... give me a couple hours... I got some stuff to do first." Like shower, and try to get this incident out of my mind.

"Okay... you wanna meet at the Groovy Smoothie?" _You'd like to get groovy with her smoothie_. I frown. My brain... it... that doesn't even make sense. The Groovy Smoothie... it's safer in a public place... she can't touch me too much there. Ugh. Touch me. I squeeze my legs together tighter.

"Sounds good. I'll text you, 'kay?"

She says goodbye, her voice still a little doubtful, still a little curious. I roll onto my back with a groan. I thought it was unbearable before, but this... I was _so close_, so, so close to coming. And then... hearing her voice... it... ugh. I couldn't stop my body reacting. I'm still so turned on... I need relief but I can't... I can't do it anymore. Not after I just talked to her, while what she really is is still fresh in my mind. I feel too ashamed. Fuck. I wipe my still-slick hand on the sheets. Why didn't I put my phone on silent? Dammit. I can't keep going, as much as I need to. I sit up with a sigh. This... this is going to be frustrating. It already _is_ frustrating.

I stand, running a hand through my hair. Maybe a shower will help. Maybe I can get in the mood again. I can't keep this up. I can't stay this pent up. Something's gonna burst and I don't want Carly to be there when it does. It's getting more and more dangerous to be around her.

**A/N: So... I realise this chapter was a bit... a LOT different from the others, but I hope it fits in anyway.**

**So please, do review... was it hot? Do you want more? Does Carly have bad timing or DID SHE KNOW?**

**No, she didn't know.**

**Did you like it? Did it make you uncomfortable in the pant-al region? Did your eyes go wide... did you laugh, put a hand to your mouth and go "This is hot!".**

**Maybe it's just me...**

**Anyway, review!**


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: iCarly. NO JUST NO STOP ASKING ME... THE SHAME. DX**

I'm late to the Groovy Smoothie. I mean, I usually am, but I'm later even more than usual this time. The shower was a bad idea; Mom came home halfway through, and, as usual, burst into the bathroom to use the toilet. When she's home, I swear I can practically set my watch to it... if I wore a watch. It's like as soon as she hears running water it sets her off. Or maybe she has an idea of what I get up to in there. It always seems like I'm interrupted, and I'm not sure if it's because I have terrible people with impeccable timing around me, or if it's because it's all I seem to do as soon I get alone. Point is, I like to finish what I start, I mean, I finished that graffiti with the cops right next to me. We have a deal of sorts at this point – they let me finish what I'm doing and I don't resist arrest. But I haven't been able to finish this time, I haven't had that release. I needed it. After the week I've had, God I needed it. And maybe I haven't exactly rushed here either... I'm a little worried about how I'm going to act around Carly. I mean, even the thought of her is enough to raise the hairs on my arms at this point.

I enter cautiously – I want to see Carly before she sees me. To... prepare, I guess. And if she sees me first... _If she hugs you, you'll probably melt right here..._ Dammit brain! She's not going to hug me, and now I've got the thought of Carly's arms around me running through my head. 'Cause I was _so_ turned off before. Luckily Carly's facing away from me when I enter, chatting animatedly to Fredbag. Oh God, he's here. Well, I won't have to worry about doing anything sexual now. Or ever again.

I'm not taking any chances though. I sit as far away from Carly as I can, which unfortunately means I have to sit closer to Freddie. He's wearing cologne or aftershave or something, and it makes me wonder what he could possibly have to shave. I mean, even I have more hair than the boy. I shudder; why am I thinking about this? At least I'm not thinking about Carly anymore.

I almost leap out of my seat when a hand covers mine. _Please, please be T-Bo trying to sell me something on a stick._ But no, only one person I know has hands that soft and delicate. Only one person has hands that can make me shiver with even the lightest touch. I don't even have to look to know. My body knows it. It always knows.

"Sam! I asked you what kind of smoothie you wanted." I blink stupidly at Carly. She moves her hand off mine once she sees she has my attention. It's usually not so hard to get, but my body is distracting my mind. Carly smiles at me, "It's okay if you don't have enough money. I was supposed to get one for Spencer, but I'm pretty sure he's not gonna be conscious when I get home." Carly sees my questioning look and explains. "He's building a self-rocking hammock."

My eyes widen. "And you expect him to be sleeping in it when you get back?"

Carly takes a sip of her smoothie, looking up, "Mm? Oh. No." She says simply, taking another sip. She doesn't need to say anything more. It's Spencer. His success rate is... well, he doesn't have one. He's been knocked out by a strong breeze before. Literally.

"Ah. Sure Carls. Blueberry Blitz?" She nods, standing to get it. I don't really want one, but at least it'll keep my hands and mouth busy, so I can't say or do anything stupid. Maybe. Plus, it's free!

Freddie plays with his phone, setting it on the table when Carly comes back, sitting my smoothie in front of me, her arm brushing mine in the process. I grab my smoothie and start sucking on the straw immediately. _Bad thoughts, bad thoughts, bad thoughts._

Of all the days for us both to be wearing short sleeves. I keep both hands around the smoothie, palms wet with the condensation and the taste of blueberry thick in my mouth.

"How'd your workout go?" Carly asks curiously, picking up her own smoothie. The cool liquid catches in my throat as I cough, fingers flexing around the cup and popping the top off.

Freddie snorts, "Sam? Work out? What'd she do, reach for a FatCake?"

"Shut it Fredbag, unless you want blueberry underwear again." I snarl once I can breathe again, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand and trying to hide my blush at the same time.

Freddie frowns, his brow furrowing. "Why would I have..." His eyes widen as he catches sight of my fingers flexing around the now-open cup, the blue liquid threatening to spill over. "Oh. Right." He slides away from me a little, looking to Carly, who's peering at me.

"Are you okay Sam? You're... acting kind of weird."

I shoot a glare at Freddie, his mouth closing instantly from where it was forming a retort. "Uh... sure, I'm fine. Just.. tired. My workout was..." I swallow hard, my voice hesitant. "It was... good, I guess."

Carly nods, toying with her straw. "What'd you do?"

I blink at her. "Wh-what?"

"Like, what exercises? In your workout."

Normally, _normally, _I'm an ace at lying, but this... this is Carly. I can't... I've never been good at lying to her. And for Christ's sake... this... this is _not_ a subject I'm comfortable with. What exercises? I don't know, what exercises can you do flat on your back?

"What?" Carly leans in closer, a little wrinkle between her eyes.

Oh fuck. Was... was I speaking out loud? Fuck. Fuck. Uh... "S-sit ups. I did sit ups." You do them lying down, and granted I was... no... no, don't even think about it.

Much to my relief, Carly sits back, apparently satisfied, and I relax a little, at least, until she sighs. Carly puts a hand to her stomach, patting it. "I've been sort of thinking I should work out."

A muscle under my eye twitches. No, it more than twitches, it tries to rip itself free and run away, which is what the rest of me would be doing if I didn't think my legs would buckle the moment I tried to stand.. Freddie's reassuring Carly that she's perfect the way she is and blah, blah, blah, which... she is. I'd be telling her the same thing, if the thought of Carly masturbating wasn't strutting through my mind in graphic detail. Oh... oh _god_. I squeeze my legs together under the table. No. Nuh uh. Dammit. I grit my teeth, trying to force the throbbing away.

"Uh... Sam?" Carly and Freddie are both staring at me, bemused looks on their faces. I follow their gaze to my hand, which at some point apparently crushed the smoothie cup, sending the blue liquid gushing over both my hand and the table. I force my fingers to let go, the remains of the cup collapsing onto the table, the remaining smoothie chugging out and spilling over the edge of the table.

I try to smile. "Uh... I'm done, I guess. Work out's working out." Freddie rolls his eyes, but Carly's still staring at me, that little wrinkle between her eyes deeper. I swallow hard and look away, grabbing a napkin to wipe my hand with. Carly's eyes flick away, and I relax a little, and then she's getting up, grabbing a handful of napkins and attempting to clean up the mess I made. It's pure Carly... she's so nice, she can't just let someone else clean it up, even if it's their job. I don't understand it... I mean.. .they're getting paid to do it, and she just feels bad. It's not even her that makes the mess, it's usually me and... I don't feel guilty at all. I mean, I am a little regretful that my smoothie is gone but... eh. Despite myself, I stand to help her, but... it's already done, as much as it can be, and Carly sighs. My hand creeps out without me realising, touching the back of Carly's hand. She smiles, "Sam... you've got paper all over your hand."

I furrow my brows, shooting Freddie a glare before he can say anything. She's right. The napkin has shed little rolls of paper all over my hand. And it's still sticky. Carly wiggles her hands in front of me. "It's okay, mine are too." She turns, "Freddie, did you wanna get Spencer's smoothie while we're cleaning up?" Freddie nods, like one of those bobblehead-nodding dogs everyone used to have in their cars. Carly walks ahead of me, manoeuvring through the tables.

"I thought you weren't getting Spence one?"

She looks back at me, pushing the door to the girl's bathroom open. "You know what Spence is like... if I don't, he'll whine like a little girl." She frowns. "Actually, that's an insult to little girls."

I grin, swallowing hard as Carly takes my hand, thrusting it under the tap. She pumps soap onto hand, lathering our hands up. I try, I try so hard to ignore it, but if I ignore her hands running over mine, then I have to focus on the fact that we're standing so close together. I can feel her breathing, I can smell her hair, and the soap, and I'm so close to her... I close my eyes. It's not-

The tap shuts off, and Carly moves away, the roar of the hand dryer starting up, and I take the time to relax, letting out a drowned out sigh. This is ridiculous. I can't even be close to her anymore? I wipe my hand off on my pants, trying not to look at myself in the mirror. I don't want to see how stupid I look.

"Come on Sam, let's go."

**A/N: Okay, so... Merry Christmas (and all those other holidays which I acknowledge, being an open-minded person and such). This is my present to all of you. So yeah. I... I didn't get you that pony. I tried to, but then the man said I needed to feed it, and brush it, and I was like, "WTF, I'll just get _Horsez_ on Wii or something." And then he said that the pony couldn't play, not having thumbs and all, and that was just a dealbreaker, so...**

**Here you go. Your gift to me can be a review, telling me to get back to writing more, and stop having such a life, which isn't even really true, it's like... not even a life. It's more of a coma with occasional seizures of energy. WOO MEDICINE!**

**Anyway... yeah. 0-0**


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: iCarly, she is not, nor has she been, although she may possibly be; mine.**

"Hey Sam, you sleeping over tonight?" I tilt my head back from where I'm sprawled on the couch until I can see Carly, upside down at the counter, Freddie tapping away on the computer beside her.

The one good thing about Freddie is at least he's distracting Carly. I hated that at first, when we started doing the show. How he'd distract her, take her away from me. I was Carly's best friend, I was all she needed, and we didn't need that little creep hanging around us making goo-goo eyes at Carly all day. And... I was jealous. Especially when he became more and more a part of Carly's life, of my life. It's part of the reason I hurt him so much, to... show him his place, I guess. And it's fun to see him squirm. As stupid as it was... I was... worried. Freddie's a guy; that already gives him an edge over me, and he's all nice and stuff. And he didn't make a secret out of his love; he's never let her down, or disappointed her like I have, and... I know Carly, I know she doesn't feel the same way about him as she does about me, but... still. He's there, and he's competition. But lately... I've needed him to distract her, because it's getting harder and harder to be around her, to be like me, and not like Freddie, and confess my love to her. I never, ever want to be Freddie.

It's given me a chance to relax, because being around Carly, being in her apartment, it does still relax me. I just can't have her near me. "Am I?" I say, rolling onto my side to look at her better. My eyes are starting to hurt, and really... I can't help but look at her.

Carly raises an eyebrow. "That's what I asked you."

"Do you want me to?" I've always wondered that, if Carly actually liked having me sleep over so often, if she ever got sick of sharing her bed with me. She's never said anything... she's never asked me to leave, but she's never really asked me to stay, either.

Freddie turns, looking at me sardonically. His face just annoys me. "Sam, that couch is practically growing on you."

"Yeah, and soon my fist will be growing on your face." I growl almost absentmindedly at him. Absentmindedly because both my mind and my eyes still haven't left Carly. She always looks so... so... amazing to me. I can't explain it. I mean, she's just wearing a pink penny tee and jeans, but it just... it's her. It's her that's wearing them, and I roll onto my stomach so I can look at her the right way up, so I can see her fully, because seeing her sideways isn't enough. And I want to hear her answer.

She shrugs. "I don't mind. I kind of assumed you were."

It's a bad idea. I know it is, but... it's not a choice I can make. It's not even a choice. If I have to pick Carly over my mom... it's not a choice, just opposite sides of the pole, Carly being the good side. She isn't a choice I make, because there's no other options, only comparisons that make her look even better. I stretch out, joints cracking, resting my head on my hands, blonde hair pillowing around me and tickling my face. "You assumed right, Carls."

Carly's... when I said she's been everything to me, I wasn't exaggerating. When I first met her, she was my friend. And then, she became like a sister to me, one I actually loved, unlike my real sister. And then she became my mother... she's looked after me much more than my mom ever has. It's Carly who presses a bag of ice against my bruised, purple knuckles after I get into a fight, it's Carly who comforts me when I'm upset, it's Carly who takes care of me. And more than that... she's my heart. Everything good in me stems from her. I know what I'd be without her, and it scares me. I'd be my mother, and that's something I never want to be. I know I would've been arrested, I know I would've done drugs; I know, because she's the only thing that makes me hesitate, even now. She's the only reason I don't. I'm not smart, I'm not talented, I don't have some bright future ahead of me, I don't have potential. I'm just like the rest of my family; no good. The only difference is that I have her. It's no surprise that I... that I fell in love with her. I just wish... I wish it could've been someone else, someone I didn't need, someone I can stand to lose. But that's not how love works, at least, that's not how my love works. It's stupid, and I hate it, but... I can't separate it from me now. When I think about her, how she makes me feel, I don't know what's love and what isn't. It's spread through all of me, until I can't remember a time when she didn't make me feel this way.

I wash my hands before dinner for once, partly because I need something to busy them, and partly because they still feel dirty from... from before. I turn from the sink to see Spencer studying me, arms crossed. I glance from side to side, wiping my hands on my black shirt. "What?"

Spencer tilts his head at me. "What are you doing?"

I raise an eyebrow at him. "What's it look like? I'm washing my hands."

Spencer blinks, brown eyes puzzled, a hand stroking over his chin. He reminds me of Carly sometimes. I think it's where she gets her kindness, but definitely not her smarts. "I've never seen you do that before."

I shrug, pushing past him, "Yeah, well, everything once."

I had a crush on Spencer for a while. I guess... it was just easier. He was the acceptable version of Carly, and he was unattainable. It was easier to think I liked him than admit I had a thing for his little sister. But you can only lie for so long, and eventually I realised that what I'd tricked myself into feeling for Spencer was still just a blip compared to Carly. You can only look away from something that's staring you in the face, until eventually you have to face it, and I'm still trying to look at it, I'm still trying to meet it's eyes.

I eat with my usual appetite, putting all my concentration into eating. Sometimes I feel like I'm running faster than everyone else, that my insides work at a different speed, because I'm always hungry, and I never seem to put on weight. I just feel like an engine that's always idling, like I've got grease in my veins that's just waiting to ignite. And it's Carly who gets my pistons pumping. I try to avoid her eyes at the table, which is hard because she's sitting across from me, and everytime I raise my head to suck down a long strand of spaghetti, every time I open my eyes after a long, blissful mouthful of spaghetti taco, she's there, eating hers in tiny, neat bites. And it seems like her eyes are running over me, like they're fingers plucking at my skin and making it crawl, and it makes the taco stick in throat, makes me take a huge mouthful of root beer and swallow hard, forcing it down, trying to bury my heart under it.

Freddie and Spencer chat intermittently, but unless they mention my name or Carly's, I don't notice. If it's not about us, then I don't care. It's funny... it's always 'us' to me. It's never just me, or her, it's always us, and it's like I don't even know what I am anymore, _who_ I am. I don't whether I'm still me, or mostly her, I don't know how much she's shaped me, all I know is that she has. And I wonder, have I shaped her? Would she still be the same without me? She'd probably be better off.

I look up again, and she's still watching me, eyes the same colour as her brother's watching me under dark brows, and I wonder what she thinks of me. I wonder what she's thinking. I lick my fingers clean, and something in her eyes flickers, and she looks away, reaching for her drink, nodding at something Spencer's saying. My stomach trembles, and I put a hand to it, confused. I never get sick... well, true, there was the time I licked that swingset, and ate that tainted chocolate, but... this is just spaghetti tacos. I take my hand away. It's Carly, it's always Carly. I wish so much that I could have stayed away from her today, that I could have been one day without her, that I could've said no, or that she could've said stop, and that I would've been able to relax. But this tension, this fucking tension that's been building all week; it's making my body act... weird. I can't control it, and I have no idea what'll set if off. It could be something as small as Carly quirking her eyebrows at me, or in the way she says my name. I feel like a guitar string, stretched tight to breaking, and all it would take is for Carly to pluck me, just once, and I'd snap. And that's why being here, sleeping over, sleeping with... with Carly is a _terrible_ idea. I don't know what my body might do, but I can't... I don't have the willpower to stay away.

I hang around the kitchen as Carly and Freddie help Spencer clear the table, leaning on a counter and picking at my nails. I'd help but... well, I don't want to, and no one expects me to anyway. Gotta live up to my reputation. I say that all the time to Carly, and she just laughs. And she's right to, really. My reputation? Strong, mean, angry Sam... it doesn't apply around her. She doesn't think of me as having a reputation. She just called it... my shell. I'd been so puzzled, my eyes flicking between Carly's face and her hand, stroking over my arm. It'd been around that time I was starting to realise, starting to think that Carly's fingers rubbing over my shoulder shouldn't make me so nervous, shouldn't make me feel so... hot. I'd asked her what she meant, heart thudding, and she'd smiled, and I'd thought her lips were so pink, so pretty, so perfect. She said that what I was to everyone else... I wasn't that to her. I was Sam to her, but to the world I was a Puckett. That I wore my name like armour. She'd tickled me and asked where the big, bad Sam was, and I couldn't help but laugh and squirm, and realise that she was right. No one made me feel the way she did, no one made me act the way that I do around her. She stripped off my shell, and touched the very quick of me. I think she's the only one who knows the real me. Does that make it the real me, if I'm only that way around her? Or does she just own that part of me, is that who I am around her? I don't know, but I never feel more me than I do when I'm with her, and nothing matters more than that.

The problem is, the me it makes isn't the me that it used to be. The me I am now is in love with her, and that's a me I can't show. She used to be the only one I could relax around, who I felt like I could say anything to, and now? I can't say anything, for fear that something will slip out. I wish things didn't have to change, that we could be those stupid kids forever, and that I could say I loved Carly, and not have it mean something more. That she could say it back, and it'd be okay, because we were kids, and kids all love the same. There's just love, and it's not shades with different meanings, there's not good kinds and bad kinds. When everything was simple, when everything was what it is. But it's stupid to think that way.

I gnaw on my fingernails absentmindedly, staring into the counter surface, my eyebrows furrowed, and it's almost like a jolt when Carly pulls my hand away from my mouth, shaking her head. "That's a bad habit." She scolds me gently, but all I can feel is her hand still pressed onto mine, fingers slipping between the gaps in mine. Carly narrows her eyes, her eyebrows pulling together. "Where are you?"

I blink at her stupidly. "I'm right here." I pull myself up off the counter, my hand slipping out from under hers. "Where's Spencer? And Freddork?"

She runs a hand through her brunette hair, fingers slipping through the glossy locks, and my hand twitches. It's almost like I can feel what it would be like to do that, to run my fingers through her soft hair, and have the smell of it fill my lungs and-

"Freddie went home, and Spencer went to have a shower. Sam... what's going on? You've been weird all day. Is it... are you still worried about the..." She looks around, lowering her voice. "The gay thing?"

I almost chuckle. Well, I guess it is, since it's her that I'm gay for, and I'm worrying. Instead I just shake my head, mouth opening to form an excuse I don't have. I've been dodging all week, and my reflexes are starting to dull.

Carly tugs at the hem of her pink penny tee, and I can't help but notice it's nearly the same colour as her lips. And now she's biting her lip, white teeth sliding over the plump flesh, and I shove my hands deep in my pockets and dig my nails into my thighs, just to take my mind off her. Off what she does to me. "Then what is it Sam? You've been acting weird all week, and I thought it was... I thought it was what you told me, but you're still..." She trails off, twisting her mouth, her eyes confused, and she reaches an arm out slowly, my nails digging in deeper, eyes flicking between her hand and her face. Her finger prods my shoulder gently, and I almost wince. "...Jumpy." She finishes, taking her hand back.

I shrug uncomfortably, pouting. I hate that my body did exactly what she expected it to. I hate that I couldn't control it. "I'm just a little on edge this week. I just need a good night's rest, that's all." The words come out stiff and wooden, and all my lies to her this week are so stale and overused, they snap as soon as they come out.

Carly nods, but I know she won't let it go. She's just waiting, and it scares me, because I don't know if I can stand up to her for much longer. She's draining all the resistance, all the lies out of me, and soon all that'll be left is the love, and I won't be able to stop it.

I clench my fists inside my plaid pockets. I can do this. I've pretended so long, what's another night? But I still can't help but shiver when she says, "Let's go to bed."

Most of my bravado these days is false, and I just hope she doesn't look behind my smokescreen. I don't want her to see how small and scared I am.

**A/N: So, funny story really, I actually had a plot for this chapter, but then I started blathering, and now it's gonna have to be in the next chapter, so, WOO. I guess.**

**As always, please, please do review. It's like butterfly kisses from a puppy, and it has that new puppy smell. You know that smell. C'mon, of course you do. I'm not being weird.**

**WELL THAT'S NOT WHAT YOUR MOTHER SAID LAST NIGHT.**

**Anyway, review?**


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: iCarly, proudly owned by someone else.**

I stare at myself in the mirror, eyes wide. Okay, Puckett, you can do this. My eyes flick away from my reflection. I don't want to see the doubt on my face. I sound so much more convinced in my mind. I run a hand through my blonde curls, sighing and sliding open a drawer, fishing around for my toothbrush. I never used to bring one, so eventually Carly just bought a spare... and it's sort of become mine. I like having something here, if that makes sense. Something that's... mine, here. I shake my head, staring at myself in the mirror. Snap out of it Puckett. It's just a toothbrush, and sure, maybe Carly bought you one with little chicken legs painted on it, but it's just a toothbrush. I squint, staring into my chilly blue eyes. I think if I look hard enough, I can almost see what an idiot I'm being.

I squeeze out a dab of toothpaste, snapping the cap back on and shoving the toothbrush into my mouth. The taste of mint hits me, tingling it's way around my mouth, and it occurs to me that this is the same toothpaste that Carly uses. She was in here right before me, brushing _her_ teeth. I swallow hard, biting down on the toothbrush. This is what her mouth would taste like. I look into my wide eyes, toothbrush dangling from my mouth, lips rimmed with minty froth. I continue brushing slowly, trying to get the thought out of my mind, and maybe I can stop the thoughts, but I can't stop the throbbing of my body. It's still thrumming, and I glance over at the door quickly. Maybe if I just... I shake my head. No, I'm not doing... _that_ at Carly's. I move the brush furiously, trying to distract myself. Still though...

My eyes creep over to the door again. It _does_ have a lock on it... and... it wouldn't take very long. I know it wouldn't. I think I'm halfway there already. I'd feel so much better. Maybe it'd tire me out enough that I could just go and... sleep. Just sleep, without worrying about if I was touching Carly too much, or if we were too close together. I shake my head again, flecks of froth spattering the mirror. No. _No_. There's no way.

I pull my hair back, spitting into the sink and rinsing my mouth out, nodding at my reflection confidently. Not a chance.

The lock clicks softly when I turn it, and I wince, like I half expect Carly to be able to sense it and come rushing over, pounding at the door. What am I doing? _It's either now, or when you're in bed with her_. Despite itself, my brain is actually making a good point for once. At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if my body did try something. It tends to lose control when I'm that close to her... pressed up against her, fingers splayed on her waist, the scent of her hair swirling in my lungs with every inhale...

I shove my hand into my pants roughly. They're a pair of black pajama pants that I left here, covered in tiny red guitars, that Carly... well, Spencer was kind enough to wash. Not that they feel clean anymore. And so many things are throbbing through me; guilt, apprehension, excitement... but most of all... just Carly, thrumming through my veins, tingling in my skin, and my fingers worm their way inside my boyshorts. My breath is already short, eyes flicking over to the door, and I smother myself when my fingertips finally brush clumsily against myself, touch hard and urgent. I let out a shaky breath, I need to... move, to change position. I avoid my reflection as I hunch over the sink, back turned to the door. And as soon as I do, it feels like there's eyes crawling over me, like Spencer and Carly must be pressed up against the door, watching. I screw my eyes shut and move my fingers faster, shuddering. I just have to get this over with, and it'll be so much easier. I brace my arm against the sink, pressing my cheek to the warm flesh, breath shaking out of me. And somehow, it's enhanced... just being in Carly's apartment, being able to smell her perfume in the bathroom here, knowing that she's just in the next room, that she's waiting for me. I bite down on my lip at the flickers of pleasure, rubbing harder, fingers slick and hot. The taste of mint is still thick in my mouth, and I let myself think; _This is what Carly would taste like_.

I think about her, what it's like to touch her. To trace my nails over her porcelain skin, over the curve of her hips, to drag my lips along her perfect jawline like I've always imagined. To hear her say my name in a different voice, and have it mean, _Please don't stop_.

My teeth sink deeper into my lip as I stifle a moan, hips twitching forward, wrist twisting against the counter. It just feels so... good, and wrong, and right, and it's building so quickly. It's taken so long, because this moment's been building since the beginning of this week, and the tension is immense. I move my fingers faster, my elbow starting to cramp. I'm almost there. My breath is almost sobbing out of me in quick little bursts, stomach jerking, legs trembling, and then it sweeps over me, my body stiffening, and I press my mouth against my arm, muffling my whimper with my own flesh. And it lingers, trembling through me, panted gasps exhaled against my forearm, dampening it, and my lips feel bruised with all the suppressed sounds, all the times I swallowed her name and felt it flutter against my ribcage and settle on my heart. I wanted so much to say it, but what if she heard me? The thought makes me shiver.

I open my eyes, my body starting to relax, dragging my hand out of my pants. What did I just do? I stare at my hand, fingers slick and sticky. I just... What did I do? I can still feel it, those remnants of pleasure, and I shudder, turning the tap on and thrusting my hand under, pumping liquid soap onto it and scrubbing. I take a deep breath. Cross that off the list of things I swore I'd never do. I turn the tap off, water gurgling down the drain as I grab a towel, wiping my hands on it. I study myself in the mirror one last time, combing a still-damp hand through my messy locks. I take a few deep breaths, it's done now, and... I feel better. I do. I was a volcano getting ready to burst, but I've relieved that pressure. I can be with Carly, and not... slip up, not explode.

I nod at my reflection, before letting out a long breath and crossing to the door, unlocking it and making my way to Carly's bedroom. I pause, realising I'm almost sneaking in, shrugging my shoulders and trying to relax. I feel like if I make a noise, she'll catch me, and know what I've been doing, but that's stupid. I'm stupid. When I go into her room, she isn't even looking at me. She's turned away from me, perched on the edge of her bed, and something... something doesn't feel right. I push down the pang of guilt I feel. I can't help but think that she knows, but there's no way she could. I think for a moment... no, no way.

I freeze. But what if she does? I can't be sure I muffled every noise... I was a little distracted. I can't be sure her name didn't slip out, that she didn't peek through the crack of the door, horrified. What if she did see? Ice frosts my veins, and I swallow hard over the iceberg now lodged in my throat. This is exactly why I didn't want to do it here. What if she knows?

Oh god, what if she knows?

**A/N: GASP. OMG GUYS. WHAT IF SHE KNOWS?**

**Well, next chapter I guess. Teehee ^_^**

**So, review and yell at me, or... put some pants on. Follow your heart. Do both, even.**


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: iCarly. Why? WHY?**

I unfreeze myself, I can't just stand here in the doorway, fingers twisting on the frame nervously. I move jerkily, stopping at the corner of the bedend, swaying in place uncomfortably. Carly's hunched over by the bedside table. "Carls? Are you...?"

She turns, smile shuttering onto her face after a pause. "Oh, Sam, I didn't know you were there." She turns back again, looking at something cradled in her hands before putting it back onto the bedside table. It's a picture. I move up beside her, sitting down heavily. She's worrying me. Carly's bubbly, but I know she keeps a lot of stuff inside. There's a lot she doesn't show people. She's not nearly as happy as she seems, but then, who really is?

I can see the picture now; her mother. "Carls... is something wrong?"

Carly takes in a breath like she means to say something, eyes fixed on her fidgeting hands in her lap. I wish I could see her eyes, I wish they weren't covered by her hair. I wish that she'd look at me. It hurts me whenever I'm reminded that Carly can be sad, that not everything in her life is perfect, because it should be. It makes me feel useless, that I can't fix everything. And what if it had something to do with me? She picks at a loose thread in her pyjama pants, lower lip wedged in her teeth. "Sam... am I a good friend?"

She looks at me finally, eyes wide, ringed with her dark, long lashes, and I can see the doubt in them. She doubts herself so much. I forget that all the time. I forget that she doesn't think she's perfect. "Carly... yes, of course you are, you're..." I lick my lips, feeling a pang of guilt. "You're a great friend." And that should be enough for me, to have even that, because I don't feel like such a great friend right now. Great friends don't masturbate in their friend's bathrooms. Great friends don't think about that friend while they do it.

A soft smile turns up Carly's lips. "You think so? I don't... do I bug you too much?"

My eyebrows tug down. "Carly... what's wrong? Why are you asking me this stuff? Why were you..." I trail off, gesturing to the picture. Carly doesn't talk about her much. She... she died when Carly was young. I shiver every time I see her picture, because she looks so much like Carly. And the thought that Carly would... that someday she could die? I don't ever want to think about that.

Carly follows my gesture, hands curled loosely in her lap. "It's... it would've been her birthday tomorrow." Carly turns to face me, hand creeping over the bed to touch my knee. "Do you think... do you think she'd be proud of me?"

All this time, this whole week... I've been me, through and through. Selfish. Carly never bugs me this much, she never interrogates me, and I feel so stupid for not seeing that as sign, for not seeing that she was the one with the problem, that she was stressing and fretting this whole time. That in all the times she asked me if I was okay, I never once asked her. All I thought about was me, and how much I want her, and that's exactly why I don't deserve her. Because even though I love her, more than I love anyone, she's still second to me in my thoughts. I'm selfish. I take a deep breath, meeting Carly's coffee-coloured eyes and speaking slowly. "Yes. She would. Any mother would be Carls. You're... you're an angel." My eyes skate away from her on the last word, gaze dropping to my lap, where Carly's fingertips rest on my knee. An hour ago, even just that touch would've had me shaking, would've had me sweating. But this is too important. I can't be selfish here. I'm Carly's friend, and it's about time I acted like it. It's about time I was there for _her_, and not for what I'd like to do to her.

Carly licks her lips, her eyebrows turning up. "I... I miss her Sam." She shrugs, smiling sadly. "But I barely even remember her. I look at that picture, and I don't see her, I just see someone who looks like me. I can't even remember the sound of her voice." She looks at me helplessly. "How could I let myself forget her?"

My heart twists sickly in my chest. I'm no good with stuff like this. I don't know what to say, I don't know what words can soothe her, can reassure her. My brain... it's defying everything she says, it's rejecting her guilt, but I can't put it into words. I don't know how to help people, only how to hurt them. I don't know how to tell her that I'm proud of her, that it's not her fault, so I draw her into a hug, ignoring the thudding of my heart and just holding her tight. And I hope to God she can hear what my heart is saying, that she can decipher the message it's beating against her. That it can say what I can't find the words for. Her arms circle around me, tight around my ribs, and it's almost like she's clinging to me, her face burying itself in my hair, in the crook of my shoulder, Carly's soft, brunette locks brushing my chin. "I'm glad you stayed over tonight." She murmurs softly, and I let out a careful breath, keeping my hands splayed on her back. I have to be here for her. What I want, what I feel? It's unimportant. Carly's upset, and... I need to be her friend, and maybe if I say it enough, I can act like it."I just... I miss her, Sam." The words are like glass to me, tearing through me cleanly. I can hear her pain in it, feel her shoulders start to shake, feel the tears fall on my skin, Carly's breath exhaled against my neck, and all I can do is make soft sounds and stroke her hair with trembling fingers and feel useless. I... I wish I was enough for her, that I could... that I could mother her sometimes, that I could fill that void in her life, that Spencer tries so hard to fill. But neither of us were meant to be parents. Carly's the nurturer.

"Sam..." Carly's pulls back from me, my grip loosening on her reluctantly. She wipes her flushed cheeks, eyes rimmed with red, and she looks beautiful even like this. It's just a kind of beauty that hurts me, that tugs my heart down to snapping point. "Can you just... can you hold me? Just until I go to sleep?"

I swallow hard, giving a short, sharp little nod. I scoot over the other side of the bed, Carly switching her lamp off and climbing under the covers. I lower myself down next to her, tentatively circling an arm around her, shuffling my body against hers. I've done it a million times before, but she's never asked. I've never had this quiver in my stomach before. She makes me giddy, and for once I don't... I don't think about kissing her, about things like that. I just wanna hold her, and... she wants that too. And maybe that's what's freaking me out about this time. She wants me to hold her. "Is... is this okay?" My voice sounds so loud in the dark quiet of her room, so hoarse, cutting through the thick air, and I almost wince at the sound, at the rawness of it.

Carly makes a soft noise of assent, her voice barely above a murmur, "Yeah, that's good."

I let out a long breath, breathing in the scent of her hair with next inhale, jumping when I feel her hand brush mine, fingers entwining themselves between mine, filling the gaps. She's holding my hand. My legs fit the curve of hers, bending where hers bend, my body pressed up tight against her, and it feels... right. I feel like I'm protecting her, as stupid as it sounds. I'm holding her like I want to, and I wish it wasn't to comfort her, but it means so much that I can. That she's letting me.

Her breathing starts to slow after a while, and I'm still having to force myself to breathe, to remember to. It feels like there's a tight band around my lungs, around my heart... around all of me, and it's drawing me closer to her. My heart is still racing, the smell of her making my head swim, and she's more of a drug to me than anything I've ever had. She gets me higher than anything I've tried, and I've tried more than one thing, not that I'd ever tell her. I make an effort to calm my breathing, bringing my lips to press against her hair in a moment of weakness. "Goodnight, Cupcake."

**A/N: I guess y'all were expecting something entirely different. I'm kind of proud for setting you all up and throwing you off the trail :P**

**Even though it's not what was... implied, please do review and tell me if you liked it anyway.**

**Good things are coming though, don't you worry.**

**Also, crackers can cut up your mouth real good.**

**I just wanted to share that :')**


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer: Guess who still doesn't own iCarly? THIS GIRL.**

She's always the first one to wake up. She's always the first one to roll out of bed and start getting ready, but just for once, I wish it was me. Just for once I wish I could've woken up first, so I could savour this, so I could hold her with the cold morning light spilling over us, so I could watch her breathe, feel her warmth, smell her skin, without that haze of sleep, without that sheet of darkness spread over us. So it could make it real, make it honest, bring it into the light. But she's always the one who wakes up first, and today is no exception.

My arms are empty when I wake up, outspread, palms up, fingers loosely curled, and it's like they tried to grab her as she left, that even in my sleep I knew she was leaving. I bring them in close, knuckles brushing against my chest, rolling over groggily. I wish I could remember what her skin felt like, but it's lost from my fingertips, it's cooled like her side of the bed. I force my legs out from under the covers, lowering them to the floor, body twisted awkwardly. Okay, only the rest to go. I drag myself upright, tangled locks of blonde hair spilling in front of my eyes. I am _not_ a morning person. At least I have breakfast to look forward to. I stretch, a hand absentmindedly scratching my stomach as I head out of Carly's room. Spencer'll make me waffles, and Carly'll pour me juice, and- _Carly_. I pause, bleary eyes opening fully. It's her mom's birthday today... I'd forgotten about that. I mean, I was aware of it, but it didn't... it didn't register. I should see if she's okay... I'll even pour my own juice.

When I reach the bottom of the stairs, feet stumbling down the steps, Carly and Spencer are sitting at the table, and... they're chatting. Things are normal. And sometimes, when something's wrong, when everyone ignores it, sometimes you can feel it buzzing in the air like white noise, crackling over your skin, but there's nothing here. It's just quiet, but for the sound of them talking, the clinking of their bowls, their spoons, and I start to wonder if I imagined the whole thing, if I just dreamt everything with Carly, and she's really just fine. I grab a bowl from the cupboard, collapsing into a seat at the head of the table, grunting in reply to Spencer and Carly's 'good mornings'. I watch the cereal as it tumbles into my bowl, drowning it in milk and setting the bottle down on the table, reaching for my spoon, and my eyes are watching my hand, my fingers as they circle around the silver stem of the spoon. My hand remembers holding hers, it remembers being entwined, skin to skin with her. It wasn't a dream. It was different, because of that... because she asked, because she held my hand.

I'm still not awake enough to join in Spencer and Carly's conversation, just focussing on spooning the sweet, crunchy cereal into my mouth. From what I pick up, they're talking about a sculpture that Spence is about to start working on. He just needs about twenty broken toasters and some fake grass. It's weird, but I feel... okay. This past week, every second I've spent with Carly, every second I've spent away from her... it's all been about her... no, about me, and how I feel about her. I've been running on hormones, on every touch, every sigh, and I've been reading into everything too much, and ignoring what was written straight in front of me. I should've noticed how she was acting, I should've picked up that something was wrong. That's what a best friend does, and I keep making myself something else to her. But it's gone, it's changed, and... what I did in her bathroom was the best thing I could've done. It's relieved that tension, it's switched my brain on again. I can be the friend it's taken me so long to be. Because that's all I am, and I need to stop thinking, stop feeling like I'm more, because I'm not. And I wish it was enough.

I drop my spoon with a clatter, licking the last traces of the cereal-sweetened milk from my lips, a hand swiping over my mouth roughly. And then Carly's motioning me up from the table, and I barely hear her words, searching her face, her voice for some sign that she's not okay, that... that how she acted last night, what she said to me... to see if that's still in her, still niggling away at her. But either she's hiding it too well or it's not there, because all I hear is Carly, that soft, gentle voice, all I see is her face, radiant even in the morning, her brunette hair tangled, but still so thick and glossy, and there's never a moment that I see her that the breath in my lungs doesn't hitch to whisper '_Carly_'.

I follow her up the stairs, keeping my eyes down, keeping them on her heels as they step up, up, up, the muscles working. Any higher and I'd see her calves, her thighs, and of all the days for her to wear pyjama shorts, this isn't the best. I need to keep my heart apart, shut in a box, just for the day... and if I can do that, maybe I can start shutting it in longer. And maybe one day, I won't have to let it out, maybe one day it'll accept it's fate and be content there, locked inside the bars of my ribs.

She starts stripping almost as soon as we reach her room, shoulderblades cutting the porcelain of her back before her dark hair spills down, shirt tugged off, and I turn quickly to close her door, to force that rush of hormones back down my throat. I can't help but turn back, can't help but watch the way she moves, the way her muscles play underneath her skin, and everything in her, the flesh, the blood, the bones; they all came together to make her, to make the curve of her waist and the line of her spine, they all came together to make this girl. To make _Carly_.

I don't know why she's never kicked me out while she's changing. When you're kids, it doesn't matter, clothes are still uncomfortable, you don't need them yet. It doesn't matter if they're on or off, clean or dirty, because your skin was always enough to cover you. It's supposed to change. I know it changed between me and Melanie, and we're the same. But it didn't feel right, it didn't feel comfortable, and I don't know whether it's because Carly trusts me, or whether she doesn't have that sense of shame that most people develop.

I tug my own shirt over my head, the smell of cotton and my hair buffeting my face, tickling my nose, cutting my stare for a moment. I've never cared about my body. It's just a shell, just something I use to get around in. It's got bruises and scars, and a mole just under my ribs, but it doesn't make it me. Having a twin makes you realise that. You live behind your eyes then. It's just a canvas of what I've done, not who I am. And I know that even if Carly did look, she wouldn't see anything. Just Sam.

My head comes free, and I realise I should've thought ahead. I have no clean clothes. I hold the bunched up shirt in front of me. "Uh... Carls?"

She turns, elbows at sharp angles as she fumbles with the catch to her bra, hands hooked behind her back, and I try to tug my eyes up, try to keep them away from the swell of her chest. But there's no safe place to rest on her, and I can feel my heart racing from where my hands are curled in the shirt, pressed against my chest. She gets it finally, brow smoothing out from where it was furrowed in concentration, and I tear my eyes up to her face as she looks at me. Sometimes I wonder how she can be so oblivious, how she can not feel my eyes crawling over her, like insects over her skin. Sometimes I wonder how she doesn't notice what she does to me, how often she makes my words stick in my throat. But maybe it's been happening so long she's gotten used to it. She points to the dresser beside me, where there's a little pile of clothes neatly folded. Of course. She thinks ahead, whereas I forgot about it until I was nearly naked. I nod, sifting through them. I've stayed over here enough so that some of my clothes have gotten left behind... and it helps that Carly's the same size as me. I dress quickly, turned away from her; I'm already finding it hard to be her friend, my heart is already rattling the bone bars of it's prison. A smile tugs at Carly's face when I turn back to her, doing the last button of my plaid top up. "Any bad dreams?"

I shake my head. "What about you?"

And for a second I see a shadow in her eyes, but it's fleeting, banished by the light of her smile. "Actually I slept really well."

I nod, eyes cast to the floor before flicking back up, mouth twisting. "Carly... are you okay?"

Her dark eyebrows dip down, smile still on her pink lips. "Sure. Why wouldn't I be?"

Carly has the unique ability to make me doubt myself, again and again, even when I know what happened. I think she could convince me of almost anything. Sometimes I wonder if she could talk me out of loving her. Maybe one day she will. "Because of... of your mom."

And that ghost is behind her eyes again, hollowing out her smile until it collapses in on itself, turning into a sigh. "That was stupid. I was being stupid. She... she died a long time ago. It's in the past."

I frown. "It's not stupid."

She steps closer to me, adamant. "Yes, it is. I barely even knew her."

"She was still your mom."

Carly shakes her head. "She was my biological mom. She never... I grew up without her. She was my mother, not my mom."

I chew my lip, moving closer to Carly and shrugging, a hand pushing lightly at her shoulder. "Hey, mom's suck anyway. You remember what my mom got me for my birthday last year?"

A grin steals across Carly's face, her nose wrinkling. "What, that lotion?"

"Hey, my skin was never smoother." I jump my eyebrows at her until she laughs, and that darkness behind her eyes is extinguished, at least for now. I might be terrible at comforting people, or helping them with their problems in a way that doesn't involve violence, but if there's one thing I can do, it's distract them. And that's my job for today; to distract Carly, and to distract myself. If I can focus on her, on making her happy, then maybe I can forget how hard my heart is beating, how hot my skin feels, how tied my tongue is. Maybe I can be the Sam my body says I am, and not the girl behind my eyes, who desperately wants the girl behind Carly's eyes.

**A/N: Sorry for the delay. I've had what they call 'writer's block', that is, I was struck on the head by a large block of concrete, and have only now remembered who I am.**

**Also, in protest, my home internet decided to go on strike, however, started working basically as soon as I called to get it fixed. I will punish it's insolence accordingly, by making it download a ton of perverted porn involving modems. It will learn not to mess with me T^T**

**Anyway, here we are, so... review. ^_^**


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer: iCarly, she/he/it, ain't mine.**

Carly's fine. Or... she was fine. I... I don't know. She's not fine. I don't know. I keep watching her so closely, and I don't know if I'm noticing things, signs, because they're there, or if they're always there, but I'm only seeing them now because I'm watching.

Maybe she started out fine, maybe she kept it under wraps from me when the day started, when I was still tired and bleary eyed as we trudged into school, shoes squeaking on the linoleum. And I should've noticed then, I should've pushed the dangling curls away from my face, out of my eyes, and looked. More than that, I should've felt. She's been my shadow all day. And that shadow is growing shorter and shorter as the day passes, she's getting closer and closer to me, so that when I turn, my body brushes against her, my arm shivers along hers, and goosebumps raise themselves as if to reach out to her, to sustain that contact. That's what woke me up, what made me start looking closer. I'm not even sure what I'm looking for; that darkness in her eyes? Am I waiting for her teeth to drag over her lip, her voice to stutter? It's impossible in school, there's too much distraction, too much chatter, too many nerds to taunt.

Don't get me wrong, Carly following me that closely, almost so close that I can feel the exhale of her breath on my skin... it's nice, it's uh... it's _very _nice, but it's for all the wrong reasons. I can feel that it's wrong, but I can't say anything. I can't say in front of Freddie, "Oh, hey, Carly... are you bummed about your dead mom?" I mean, obviously if she wanted Fredbag to know, she would've told him. I wonder if she even really meant to tell me, or if she just couldn't keep it in. Maybe that's why I'm still sort of unsure. She's too close, I can't watch her, I can't focus on anything but her touching me. I can't look at her as closely as I'd like, to pick out her slumped shoulders, her downcast eyes, an exhaled sigh, because she's basically pressed up against me. Every time I look at her, my breath catches at how close she is, and she meets my eyes every time, fingers plucking at my sleeve like she just wants to be near me, just needs to touch me, and I lose all focus. My eyes skitter away from her chocolate brown ones, and whatever shadows might be there are lost.

It's making my palms sweat, and I swear I've wiped them over the front of my plaid skater shorts a million times today. My skin's itching, crawling, like it's abuzz about where she's going to touch next, and jostling for her attention, and I hate how I feel like my body gives me away. I can be as calm as I like, I can act like I don't give a fuck, but my body still trembles and shakes, and begs for her attention as subtly as a cat rubbing itself against something, and I feel like she must be covered in fur from my body's enthusiasm. She must know, she has to feel, has to sense how uncomfortable she makes me. Uncomfortable because I'm forced to sit close, and it's still not close enough. My body wants to bridge that short distance, it can feel how easy it would be to hold her, to tangle itself in hers; all I'd have to do is move my arm, shift my hips like this...

But I can't. So I have to put up with my body achingly telling me that it wants to, it wants to so very badly. And I wish, I _wish_ for a moment I could forget about my feelings, about how she makes me feel. Not just because it's hard, not just because it hurts, but because I'm supposed to be her friend, I'm supposed to be looking out for her, looking after her, especially today. But my body keeps getting in the way, keeps obscuring my vision of her. I want to see her with my eyes, with my brain, not my skin and my heart.

She's quiet at lunch, picking at her food with a plastic fork, swirling patterns around in whatever concoction the cafeteria's calling food today. But at least she's further away from me, hunkered down in the brown plastic chair, elbows resting on the table. She's watching her fork move with dull eyes, and now I have the distance, the clarity to see that she's not okay. Freddie's caught in between, taking short, nervous bites out of his apple, eyes skittering between us. He might be a nerd, a geek, a techie, and have no idea about social interaction... but he knows when something's wrong between us. Especially when there's something wrong with Carly. We've both opened our mouths half a dozen times to say something, to try and breach this silence, to break this tension, and Fredbag actually made it halfway through a sentence before he realised no one cared.

He actually jumps when one of his nerd buddies taps him on the shoulder, whining about some 'tech emergency' in the AV room. I've always interpreted that as meaning one of them saw a girl and started hyperventilating. Freddie shoots Carly an apologetic glance, metal legs of the chair scraping back as he stands, mumbling something about only taking a second. I tell him to take all the time he needs, but my eyes stay on Carly. Maybe this is a chance to say something, to maybe cheer her up. I can't use Freddie being here as an excuse anymore.

My eyes flick over her, trying to scan her face, pale skin cut and sliced by dark locks of her hair, shoulders hunched. She's caging herself up with just her posture, and I'm hoping she'll unlock for me, that she'll let me in. "Carls..." My fingers tiptoe across the white table, stopping just before her elbow, and she glances over, almost as if she's startled that I'm here, fork freezing in it's figure-of-eight pattern. "You okay?" I tilt my head like I'm trying to twist my way into her sight, like maybe if I look at her from an angle I can see what's wrong, as if she's covered in invisible ink, and I'm trying to find the right lighting to read her.

Carly's eyes flick up to meet mine, and there aren't any shadows. There aren't any, because there's no light in them, there's nothing to cast a shadow. They're just flat, and dark, and... lifeless, like she's switched off. Like she's asleep, just with her eyes open. She opens her mouth, pink lips parting, and there's a flicker in her eyes, like maybe she's waking up. I can feel the words ready to spill from her lips, tumbling over each other, and they're all lies. They're all ways of trying to tell me she's okay, that she's fine, but she can't quite bring herself to say them. She knows I'd never believe her. She knows I wouldn't ask her unless I already suspected the answer.

That spark in her eyes dies out, her breath escaping with it, and a tired hand brushes the brunette hair that's fallen over her face away. "No." The word is quiet, almost a sigh, and I wonder if she even meant to say it, or she just couldn't force herself to lie. And I don't know what to do, I don't know what to say, I don't know how to deal with Carly's sadness. She's always been the one to help me, she's always been the perky, optimistic one. I've always been the stupid, impulsive one, and while that's amusing, while she enjoys it, it's not good with this sadness. It doesn't help. Tripping a dork isn't going to make her smile today.

I wish I could make her see what I see. That she's a person anyone would be proud of, that her mom would've talked about her with a warm smile on her face, bragged about her. Because that's what I do. I brag about Carly all the time... never in front of her, of course. She shouldn't hear how I sound when I do. But how can I tell her that? She's not going to believe me, she'll think I'm lying to make her feel better. I lie to everyone, why not her? I can't use my words to coax, to stroke. They're too heavy, too crude; they'd only bludgeon her in my attempts to make her feel better. "What can I do?"

I want her to tell me. I'd do anything, _anything_ she asked. I'd even... no. I don't want to let my imagination run wild with the things I'd do to... things I'd do _for_ her. Carly's fingernails pick at a chip in the surface on the table, brow furrowing. They flick up suddenly, and there's something burning in them. It's almost anger, or at the least, frustration. Carly doesn't like being sad... I remember when she was a kid, and she broke one of her favourite toys. That doll's head just fell right off. She cried for ages, and I tried to fix it... unsuccessfully. She was still upset the next day, and she'd looked at me, that same sort of fire in her eyes, and asked me why she was still sad, why she couldn't stop the sadness and make herself happy again. I was just a kid, I didn't have an answer for her then, and I don't have one now. She stopped asking me that, but I can still see it in her. She's frustrated she can't fix herself, that she can't snap out of it. She shrinks it, she demeans it, calls it stupid and ridiculous in the hopes that maybe she'll force it away. And I don't know how to tell her it's okay if she's sad, that she can't help it, that it's not stupid... it's important.

Her tongue darts out, running over her lips, eyes studying me, ringed with her dark lashes, stark against her pale cheeks. "Distract me."

My fingers twitch from where they're splayed out near her, curling into my palm, my hand drawing back a little. I open my mouth to say something, to lessen the intensity that's building between us, to shrink that shred of desperation, of almost-pleading in Carly's eyes.

"Hey, Sam!"

I swear my teeth click when my mouth shuts, breath whooshing out as I turn slightly, tearing my eyes away from Carly, who's gone back to toying with her food, shoulders hunched again, cage locked. "Hey Wendy."

Wendy grins at me, oblivious to the maelstrom that was swirling between me and Carly, parting the clouds with her obvious exuberance. But it's still there, underneath the surface, whirling away. "You forgot to RSVP for my party tonight! I thought I'd remind you since... well, last time I didn't and you threw a shoe at me." I smile slightly; I remember doing that. I filled it with mayonnaise before I threw it too.

"I think I'll pa-"

"We'll go. What time is it?" Carly cuts me off, fork clattering against her plate.

"It's at seven." Wendy looks a little taken aback at Carly's outburst, before shrugging nonchalantly. "See you guys there." She gives us a little half wave before she walks away, one of her friends calling out to her from across the lunchroom.

I look at Carly curiously. "Carls... why would you...?" Carly's not a party girl; or, if she is, it's pointy hats and birthday cake and pony rides. Not the kind of party that Wendy throws. Things get broken at Wendy's parties... and sometimes those things are bones. People get pregnant at Wendy's parties. People lose clothes and fluids at Wendy's parties... and Carly knows this. She doesn't like me going... I get too many bruises and strange smells on me.

"I need a distraction." Carly's eyes are steady on mine, and... I feel like I don't know her. Carly's soft, she's mushy, but this girl... this girl has a shell around her, she's gone rigid, and her voice is soft but cold. She's trying to escape the thoughts swirling around in her head, and I wish she'd just let them go, let them run their course. But maybe she will tonight. Alcohol has a way of letting things out of people... usually things that need to be kept. If it's what she wants, if it's what she needs, I'm not gonna stop her. I'll take care of her and hope for the best. And who knows, we might actually have fun.

"We taking Freddork?"

Carly's lips turn up in a little smile, just at the edges. "Just us girls."

**A/N: I apologise for the significant lack of action in this chapter, it's mainly just a set up for the next. And my mojo is still MIA, so I'll keep hunting for it.**

**In the meantime, review, have some cookies. I baked them special. BUT YOU LET THEM COOL FIRST OR YOU'LL BURN YOUR FINGERS. Those choc chips are molten.**


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer: iCarly, much like edible food, does not belong to me. I'm so hungry 0-0**

Everything is pulsing and thumping and hot. It makes my head swim and my brain spin. Everything's bright and close and my body rattles with the thump of the music. My ears buzz with the sound of low chatter, broken by shouts and screams and the occasional screech of laughter. My mouth tastes sour and my tongue feels numb, and when I talk my words come out with the edges off, all soft and melting, and my hands slide slowly where they mean to push people aside. Everyone's turned into a monster, every emotion is exaggerated and ugly. They laugh, they cry, and it's the same face, just one comes with a wet face and a dry sob, and the other with glazed eyes and bared teeth. And I wouldn't mind so much, if I'd had more to drink, if I'd been able to lose myself in it and just be one of them, just be another stupid teenager trying to do something I'll regret. I already have, actually. I never should have brought Carly here. I'm not a good nursemaid, I'm not good at taking care of people. I can't even take care of myself. Not that I really care what happens to me. I stuck by her at first, when we first got here. I even got her her first drink, and watched the grimace she made when she took a sip. I saw her throat work when she forced herself to drink it all, and the way her fingers shook when she took another. I guess in a way I am being her nurse... I'm giving her her medicine, and she's choking it down. She's coating the shadows in her eyes, and slowing them down, painting over them with black. You can't see shadows in the dark. There's irony in the fact that I tried to be her shadow, that I tried to stick to her, and she hid me too. She clung to me at first, but then her grip loosened, her hands started reaching out, her body turned away from mine. She forgot, and maybe that's good, maybe it's for the best, that she forgets.

I spot her, hands jittering with gestures as she talks animatedly to a guy, some nub in a stained shirt, his lips pink and shining in a slack grin, eyes centred on her chest as he nods. It makes this anger surge up in me, and I feel this urge to punch him in his stupid face until his eyes are puffed and blackened and he can't fucking look at her anymore. He doesn't deserve to. It burns through the haze of alcohol, fingernails digging into my palms, teeth gritting, and I force it down, shoving my way through the blurred teenagers between us, ignoring the offended shouts and peals of laughter it causes. I haven't had nearly as much to drink as her, I needed to be able to keep an eye on her. Her coffee eyes are glazed, hair pushed back messily, a lock hanging over her face. "Carls, come on." I tug at her arm, skin hot. I just want to get her home, to take that film out of her eyes, that slur out of her voice. It's not her, I don't want it to be.

It's funny, I always used to relish whenever Carly did something remotely bad. It was adorable in a way, because it was still her doing; she was still Carly, just with an edge. This girl looking down at me, eyebrows jerked down at my hand on her arm like she can't quite understand how it got there... it's not her. "Where are we going?" I can feel the asshole she was talking to glaring at me, and I turn my back to him. He's nothing, he doesn't deserve to talk to her, even like this.

"Home." I tug on her arm lightly, determined, but she brushes me off, laughing.

"But I'm not done talking to..." Her nose wrinkles before she bursts out with a peal of laughter, face an exaggerated mask. "What was your name again?"

My shunned hand curls back into a fist, that sour taste prickling my tongue all of a sudden. "Fine." If she doesn't want help, then I won't give it to her. I'm doing my best to look after her... no, that's a lie, if I'd been doing my best I never would've brought her here. I couldn't help her, my jokes weren't working, and that's all I know how to do. I thought she'd have a few drinks and open up, curl up to me with tears in her eyes and silent sobs, that she'd cry it all out and everything would be fine. I thought the Carly she was hiding would come out, but instead she's buried it deeper, so deep you can't hear the screams. And maybe I'm exaggerating, maybe this is just my own sick feeling, maybe the alcohol is steeping in my brain and making everything more than it is, but I just don't want to care anymore. I'm so sick of caring, of worrying about her, of wanting her. It's driving me insane. My heart's being pulled every which way, and my brain isn't working at all. I'm just stumbling around, waiting for the inevitable day when I do something to push her away.

I shove my way back through the crowd, heading for the fridge. Everything's dirty, and hot, and writhing, like this is some hellish pit I'm trapped in, trying to keep my head above the mass of sweating bodies. The bottle is cold, condensation coating my hands, and I feel rather than hear the hiss when I twist the top off, taking a long sip. It's overwhelming sweetness scraping over my tongue, followed by the crawling burn of the alcohol, sticking in the back of my throat and threatening to choke me.

And eventually, everything drifts away. All that seething worry disappears, and it's like I'm looking down the wrong end of a pair of binoculars; everything's so far away, so distant, all the people are small. It's like I'm not even real. Like I'm not even here, elbows ribbing me, bodies grinding against me; I don't feel it. But it's still so hot, so choking, like I'm breathing in smoke, and it's making me dizzy. I push my way to what I vaguely remember as the exit, stumbling over feet and bodies, thump of the music pulsing through me, matching my heartbeat, the throbbing of my head.

The cold hits me like a slap, stinging my face, slathering my arms with it's chilly fingers, cooling the sweat on my flushed skin. I gasp in an icy breath, feeling it seep into my lungs, freezing them. It actually feels good. At least it sobers me up a little, enough for me to feel a little surge of guilt. I forgot about Carly, just because she forgot about me. Just because she ignored me, just because she didn't need me. I needed her to need me. Nobody needs me.

That's one thing I hate about alcohol, how it crawls into your mind and messes everything up. It can shove everything away, clear a space where you can just drift, or it can pull up a fear, an insecurity, and read it in a loud voice, pointing at the words and laughing. It's a game of Russian roulette you play by yourself; at some point you hit that loaded chamber, and depending on the person, it might be every chamber that's loaded. If you're lucky, it'll just be a blank, something that stings, but you blink enough and it goes away.

I close my eyes, taking a deep breath, falling back against the cold bricks of Wendy's house, rough surface snagging my shirt, scraping my back. I just need things to click back into focus. For everything to stop spinning. There are a few kids out here, the flicker of lighters, the glow of cigarettes punctuated with a stream of white smoke, low chatter mixed with the singing of the crickets. It's quieter, I can hear myself think, I can feel my heart beating hard, throbbing in my fingers and toes, getting out of sync with the dull thump of the music inside the house. I thread my fingers through my messy blonde locks, palms pressed over my eyes. I just need things to slow down.

"Sam?"

I open my eyes, hands sliding away from my face. It's Carly, form dark, tendrils of hair rippling in the slight breeze as she walks unsteadily over to me. She brings an aura of warm that seeps through my shirt, that makes my skin goosebump and reach out to her, like a dog's ears pricking at a familiar scent. She stands close, a waft of alcohol and her perfume filling my lungs, and it makes my head spin all over again. "Hey." I say softly, nudging her shoulder with my own.

"Why are you out here?" Her grin splits her face, skin coloured in blue hues by the starlight. It makes her look cold when she feels oh so warm. My heart hammers against the cage of my ribs, as if to say _Her, she's the one you love, remember?_ But how could I ever forget? Another chamber in my gun clicks hollowly, another empty round.

"It was too hot. I needed to cool off." Being out here with her... it's kind of nice. She's almost huddled against me, and that tension she had today is gone, that worry that's always in her forehead is smoothed out. Her eyes are blank and happy, and maybe it's what she needs. An escape, if only for a night. Her hand links around my upper arm, almost burning the chilly skin with it's heat, and I'm suddenly glad I didn't bring a hoodie. Maybe this is what I need too, to just relax in the dark with my best friend, without that boundary drawn between. To just have that bold, black line be invisible in the dark. To be how it used to be.

Carly giggles, her nose wrinkling. "I know! I saw."

My brows dip down in confusion, eyes flicking over her face, cheekbones throwing shadows on the planes of her cheeks. "Saw what?"

Her tongue darts out over her lips as she exhales, eyes flicking down, hand tightening on my arm. "I saw you with Wendy. Two of you looked pretty chummy." She jumps her eyebrows at me, lips shaking, and I don't know if it's from the cold or from suppressed laughter or if she even realises that she's doing it. I can feel her legs trembling against mine as she sways, the denim of our jeans stained black in this dim light, merging together like we're joined.

I'm confused for a moment, eyes widening as I realise what she means. Wendy had called me over, laughter in her voice, and it felt good to have my name called that way. I'd smiled, because things were simple, the alcohol had cleared that space, and I was floating, the people around me cushions I could bounce off. Wendy had slung her arm around my shoulder, her breath tickling my face, hand stroking my cheek. _Having fun? Glad you came._ Snippets of conversation that I grinned to, nodding dumbly, cheek tingling where Wendy's fingers stroked, a crooked smile on her face, eyes ringed with such long lashes. Eyes almost like Carly's. That'd snapped me back, made the smile drop off my face and my shoulders shrug off the arm around them. That's when things had gotten too hot, too stifling, and I'd started to fight my way out, and the cushions grew elbows and claws to jerk into me, to branch across my vision and trap me. She'd looked a little like Carly, just for a moment, but it was enough to trick my heart, enough to make it beat a little faster. Enough for my finger to tighten on the trigger.

"Did you kiss her?" Carly says it in an almost singsong voice, eyes downcast, fingers tiptoeing along my arm, a smile curving her pink lips.

I shake my head mutely, Carly's fingers leaving a burning trail that seeps into my skin, gets into my bloodstream.

Carly tilts her head, a lock of dark hair slipping free. "So you still haven't kissed a girl?"

I hate that 'still'. I hate this pressure that's on me to prove myself to everyone. The only 'still' that applies here is to her. I still haven't kissed _her_. That's the only thing that matters to me, the thing that I'm so scared to prove. "Nope." I smile at her, fluttering my eyelashes. And honestly, I don't care. I don't care anymore than when I kissed Fredward. He was never the one I wanted to kiss anyway. He just made me realise how much I wanted to be kissing another set of lips. A set that's talking to me right now.

"Did you want to?" Her voice is barely above a whisper, alcohol-tinged breath feathering my face, and I can barely hear it over the sound of the gunshot going off inside my head. And it hits me straight in the heart, cracking my ribs open and sending shards of shattered bones tearing through my flesh. I know it's just the alcohol speaking, or I'm misunderstanding, because it can't... this isn't... it's _not_.

"Carls?" I turn my head to face her more, to see what shadows I can pick out of her dark eyes, to read what I can from her, but her face is clear, eyes glassy, lips shining like a beacon, her smile gone.

"You can kiss me, if you want." Her voice isn't cold anymore, it isn't brash like it was inside, it isn't harshened by alcohol or dulled by her closing off. It's her voice, soft, and quiet and just hers.

And now that I can, now that's it's okay, I'm scared. I always assumed that one day I'd just break, just snap and kiss her. I never thought I'd have her permission. It's not real, I know it's not, and it's not what I want or how I want it, but how can I not? It's all I've thought about for so long, it's all I thought about even now, even as she leaned against me and talked to me about Wendy. My mind is trying to come up with an excuse, a _but_ that won't make her suspicious, but it can't. It doesn't want to. I don't want to.

I lick my lips, eyes flicking over her face, and Carly's lips are parted, just a little, eyes peering out from her messy hair. It's Carly. Even like this, there's no way I can pretend it's not her, and I know that she's just doing it because she's drunk, but all I can see is her. I shut my eyes tight and lean forward, and part of me is sure it's a joke, that it's a bluff Carly didn't expect me to call, a joke that I didn't get. But her lips meet mine, and they're soft, and her mouth is just a little cold, chilled from the air, but it's hers. The only sound I can hear is the pounding of my heart, painful throbs pulsing blood from the bullet wound inflicted on it, those shards of bone working themselves deeper with sweet agony. I can't breathe, and I don't want to. Even through the alcohol, I can taste her, _her_, _Carly_. Her lips are moving against mine, and she's kissing back, and I know it's not real, but it feels just like it. It's more than I dreamed, but it's in a nightmare setting.

She tastes sweet, and bitter at the same time, and her lips make this small sound that jolts into me like a shock, _this is real_. I'm kissing her, I'm still kissing her, and it feels... it feels wrong, but my heart is too happy to care, my brain is too flooded to stop. It feels too good. Carly's body presses against me, my back scraping against the brick, and she breaks away finally, head resting on my shoulder, panting. I let out a broken breath, and she drifts out on it. This is what I wanted, it's everything I'd hoped it would be. So why do I feel like crying? Why do I feel empty? Why is my heart slowing in my chest, turning to stone and sinking through the ruptured flesh. The gun went off; I lost my game of Russian roulette. I'm alive, but I'm barely breathing, and I want to regret this, I want it to never have happened, but a part of me is holding it close already, clutching it in bony, desperate hands and whispering, _at least you'll always have this_. But I don't want this. I want more. I want her so bad, all of her. I don't want these moments, this... I don't want this kiss.

**A/N: So, this is what you've all been waiting for. Except for that one guy... he was waiting for a bus. How he even... anyway. That's not important.**

**So... disappointed? Relieved? Nonchalant? Bespectacled? Sipping tea with a pinky firmly extended?**

**I think you should review and let me know. Give me a piece of your mind! And when I have enough, I'll build a superbrain. And with it, I shall rule the world... or at least use it to order pizza/gamble.**


	14. Chapter 14

**Disclaimer: I've written so many of these, but the message never changes. So here's a different one. Bananas are high in potassium.**

I come to groggily, head pounding. I put a hand to my forehead, taking a deep breath. I keep my eyes closed; I can sense how bright it is, and I don't much feel like being blinded. I already feel terrible enough. My body's all curled up, and I feel so warm and comfortable, but my mind is quickly dissolving that illusion. I start to notice various aches and twinges in my muscles; my clothes are sticky, spots of spilled alcohol dampening them, and I feel dirty. Not just physically, but like it's seeped through my skin and poisoned my bloodstream. It's a kind of dirty that prickles your spine and scrapes your ribs, and you know you can't just wash it off. It's inside. But most of all, I become aware of an arm around me, hooked around my waist, a body snuggled into mine, and I wonder what mistakes I made last night. I'm still wearing clothes, so that's a good sign.

I shift a little, cautiously, and my stomach is sinking even as I do so, because I know this body, I know this arm. It's Carly, her eyes closed, face smooth, little breaths from her parted lips. She looks like a child, she looks innocent, and if it wasn't for the pervading stench of alcohol, I'd think this was just another night. She still looks clean, and pure, but then I'm seeing her through biased eyes, and I certainly can't split her open and take a look at her insides. If I could, I would've done it ages ago, because there isn't a time I can remember that I didn't want to see her heart, to take away the mystery of her ribs and lungs and flesh that obscured it.

Somehow we're in a bed. Finding a bed at a party is like winning the lottery. I lick my lips, examining my knuckles. Sure enough, they're bruised. Or in my case, it's more like fixing the numbers... I'm always guaranteed to win. And the more I wake up, the more I feel... wrong. Carly's holding me, she's snuggled up against my spine like she was made for it, slotted in like a puzzle piece, and she's not quite a perfect match, but someone's pounded her until she fit. Maybe that someone was me, because all I've ever wanted is to.. to have this, but I never wanted to force it.

I lick my lips again, stretching as much as I can under Carly's hold, her arm tightening on me slightly. "Sam?" She murmurs sleepily, and I shift again in her grip, until I can see her face without twisting my neck. Her eyes are still closed, and she's pouting like a petulant child with their arm circled around their favourite toy. I roll to face her, her arm retracting from me and pulling up to her side as she snuggles down further, groaning.

"Morning Carls." And just like that, it hits me like a sledgehammer, a muscle under my eye twitching. Suddenly, I'm wide awake, and she's much too close, and my ribs are hugging my lungs far too hard, and I'm sipping air like it's some bitter medicine. I'm scooting back from her desperately until I slide off the bed with a thud, wind knocked from me, and even then, my hands are still pushing me away, feet still pushing me back until I'm against the wall, a few loose bottles scattered on the carpet around me. She- I- we-

We kissed.

She kissed me, and I kissed her, and that's definitely how kissing works. My stomach churns sickly, a sour taste rising in my mouth like it's trying to jog my memory, to get the film flickering, but slides are missing. It's flashes, moments, sounds and smells and tastes and sighs. Carly's lips, slightly cold, her hands, so much warmer, breath panting against my neck afterwards. It's like a ghost hovering over me, this memory, and I swat my hands to shoo it away.

I swallow hard, resting my head against the wall, bringing my knees up. She let me kiss her, and I actually did, and what happened after that I can't remember, and I'm not sure that I want to. Was there more? Was there less? Did she diminish what it was even further with stupid words, _just for fun, means nothing_? Or did she... did she say more? What did it mean, anyway? Was it just some drunken request, some offer, some twisting train of thought that went from _Sam hasn't kissed a girl _to _I'm a girl Sam could kiss_? I don't know and I'm terrified to ask. She's still sleeping, anyhow, and I wonder if she'll remember when she wakes up... she had much more to drink than I did. Will she wake up with a smile, rubbing her eyes, voice soft and threaded with sleep, or will she jerk awake, what we did throbbing through her and making her stomach revolt violently. How will she look at me when she wakes up? Because I don't see how this can't change things. I don't see how everything can just be normal again, not when I know what it's like to kiss her, and she knows what it's like to kiss me. Not when we both know what it's like to do what friends don't do.

She kissed back. I can't stop myself from shivering, fingertips touching my lips, and as hard as I try, these snippets of sensation keep flashing before my eyes, and I can't seem to close them. I run a hand through my messy hair. I just... I just feel dirty, and it's more than skin deep. I feel like I've done something... wrong, and usually I love that feeling. But it's just... what happened wasn't right. The fairytale went wrong, and I'm only just realising that maybe I didn't want her at any cost, maybe it wasn't worth kissing her if it happened this way. Maybe this only makes things more painful, more fucked up, because it wasn't supposed to happen like this. It was supposed to mean something.

I pull myself to my feet unsteadily, using a hand on the wall to support myself. I barely have the energy to lift my feet off the ground, dragging along the carpet and nudging aside the various bottles and cans that litter the hall when I go out into it. I just need to wash my face, get some of this dirt off.

Carly's awake when I get back, facing away from me, shoulders hunched forward, fingers threading through her tangled brunette hair. I don't know whether it's better that I wasn't there when she woke up. I don't know if I'd have wanted to see her face, see her think through everything with me right there. To look at me and have that realisation, that sudden recollection of what we did. And it's something that's so small... Carly's kissed a tonne of guys, hell, she's even kissed Freddie. But this is different, this is me. And she doesn't know how much it means... or maybe she does. She's never said a thing either way, and I don't know how to feel about that either. I like to pretend I know every thought that goes through her head, because you're supposed to know everything about your best friend, you're supposed to be able to read their thoughts, to know what they're thinking, but Carly's still a mystery. Maybe I'm just not looking hard enough, maybe I'm too busy trying to hide what I'm thinking from her. Hell, I didn't even notice she was stressing about her mom, I was too focussed on myself.

"My head hurts." Carly groans, letting out a long breath. I cross to the wall, leaning against and folding my arms, as if I can keep my feelings in with just a gesture. I can't sit next to her, I can't smell her, and see her that closely right now. It's hard enough when I don't have a throbbing headache and an ashtray mouth.

She lifts her head, blinking. "How are you?"

I smile at her. "The same. I'm just more used to it, is all."

A smile curves her lips as well, a laugh almost escaping. She shakes her head instead, stretching and letting out a sigh afterwards. It's like nothing ever happened, and I'm starting to wonder if I dreamed the whole thing, if I just got so drunk I passed out and hallucinated it. That'd make more sense. That'd make things easier. Or maybe she just hasn't remembered yet. "Help me up." She holds her hand out to me, and I grab her wrist, pulling her up.

She remembers. We're close, so close, and it's not any closer than we usually are, really, but her breath catches and her eyes flick away from mine, that smile disappearing. She remembers. She lets go of my wrist, licking her lips and shifting away from me. "You okay?" I say it lightly, casually, but inside my heart is rattling around my ribcage, trying to rip itself free and jump out my throat. To put itself close to hers and see if the beats match, to see who's winning the race, who's thumping harder.

She licks her lips again, like she's trying to get some sweet taste off them, eyes darting to mine briefly, and once again, I can't understand them, alcohol still blurring the words like wet ink her hands have dragged across, obscuring herself from me. "Yeah, I'm just a little... shaky."

Shaky. As if my own lungs weren't shaking my breath out inside me, as if I wasn't filled with ice shifting in my chest cavity, melting and running with every breath. "I know what you mean." Words are so easy to say, so easy to hide behind. I've told her the truth a thousand times, and it's sounded like a lie, it's made her cock an eyebrow and try to skin the lies off me when they were never there, all because my voice stuttered, dropped, and the words had to be forced out. And yet she swallows all the lies so easily, just because they taste a little sweeter, because they come out so effortlessly, coated in honey, and they're just what she wants to hear. "You wanna go home?" I'm speaking to her back, to her shoulderblades, her spine, her tousled hair as she runs her hands through it, elbows in arrows that point everywhere but her. I'm trying to speak to _her_, but she won't face me.

Her voice drifts to me, soft and a little rough around the edges, spoken but not seen. "Yeah, let's go. I feel dirty." And I wonder what she means by that, what's in her eyes, and whether she's hiding behind her words too. It's impossible to tell.

**A/N: As always, I prostrate myself before you guys, and beg you to review. Some demons feed on souls, others on sin. I feed on reviews. A poor choice, I know, but it's too late to change now and I'll be damned if I prove my mother right when she said I'd starve. ;D**


	15. Chapter 15

**Disclaimer: iCarly does not belong to me, my friends, or my friend's friends.**

There's something between us. Something that scrapes and slides and stings, and I know exactly what it is. It's what happened, and maybe it's half-remembered, maybe it's only glimpsed; some visible half of an iceberg concealing the mammoth underneath, but it's enough to chill us. To come between us, and freeze our words. What is there even to say? _Oh, hey Carly, thanks for the spit swapping there, that was super. By the way, I love you, so... there's that. Whatever. _Maybe I could've even said that at one point, played it off as a joke. But... she's not in a laughing mood, it's too big, and it's too close, and my breath would catch on every jagged word. The only thing worse about joking about something serious, is trying to joke, and showing how much you actually care. The last thing I wanna do is show I'm vulnerable. I'm Sam Puckett, I'm invincible. Nothing phases me, I don't give a fuck about what anyone thinks, what anyone does, hell, even what I do. I just don't care about anything. But there's always an exception to a rule. And Carly's every exception to who I am.

We reach her apartment door, Carly scrabbling in her bag clumsily for her key, and I don't think we've even said a handful of words to each other since we left Wendy's. I've started at least a dozen that never made it past my lips. My treacherous, traitorous lips. She's still on them, stopping every half-formed word, and I wonder if it's the same with her. I wonder what I tasted like to her. I hang back behind her, watching her shoulderblades dip as she digs deeper in her bag, exhaling hard as she does so. Everything's so... wrong. It's like strings are attached to every part of me, controlling every action, every inaction, tugging and twisting and stopping me. I can't relax, and my stomach is churning sickly, dull ache pounding behind my eyes. I can't be myself, because I'm not even sure who that is anymore.

Carly's key grinds in the lock, and it jerks me from my reverie, hands pulling out from where they're shoved in my pockets. I follow her in, still that half-step behind, like I'm afraid to catch up to her, to see her face, and I am. I don't know what I'm gonna see there. My heart always wanted more from her, but it was too stupid to realise there could be less. I can't take less. I can't take her separating me apart, holding me back with her eyes, closing me off. No. Deep breaths. I'm still all shaken up from the alcohol. This isn't me. It's not usually me. It's not.

"Hey kiddo, you want some breakfast?" Spencer calls out cheerfully from the kitchen, and it's like he's running a cheese grater over my brain with his happiness, his simplicity.

Carly drops her bag on the sofa, slouching her way towards the stairs like she's wading across the floor, like she's having to push through thick tar with every step. I know how she's feeling; like shit that's been kicked. It's the same feeling that's in my heart. "No thanks, Spence, I'm just gonna head to bed." Her hand slides up the banister as she ascends, swaying slightly.

"What about you, Sammo?" Spencer wipes his hands on a tea towel, grinning at me. "I'm makin' Mexican pancakes."

I glance between him and the stairs. I'm torn... do I follow her? Does she want me to? Am I meant to? What the fuck do I do? What does- how does- how do I-? Fuck. I'm being pulled every which way. I don't know what you're supposed to do in situations like this. It's not- it's so delicate, and I'm scared. "I don't-"

"Hey." Spencer cuts me off. "You wanna know what makes 'em Mexican?"

I sigh, foot scuffing the rug in front of the stairs, body wavering towards them. My fingers play over the bannister, skimming the smooth surface. "'Cause they're on fire?" I raise my eyebrows pointedly.

Spencer snorts. "No! 'Cause they've got chilli in- wait, what?"

I make the decision, feet tapping up the stairs, Spencer's screams and plaintive cries becoming muffled as I make the turn to where Carly's room is. Well, her door's open at least. That's... I don't know whether that's good or not. I don't know what anything is anymore.

Carly's slumped on the edge of her bed, head in her hands, fingers threaded through the brunette locks, and I think for a minute that she's crying, until she raises her head, eyes shadowed. There's this film between us, that's blurring our forms and muddying our vision, and it's so fragile, so flimsy, but I still can't break through it. I still can't see her clearly. I can't even see myself. I'm in a state of waiting. Where my brain is usually raging, yelling and writhing; _Carly! It's Carly! Her hair is all tangled and it's kinda hot and her shirt is pushed up a little, I can see her skin, remember what it felt like to touch her there? It's Carly! _But now it's stopped. It's trembling and silent, fingers tented together nervously, and it was her lips that shut up it, that made it her slave, unable to speak until she does. The silence is palpable, and I swear I can almost feel the awkward, trickling through my fingers.

"So... I guess we should talk about this." Carly's voice is quiet, but it cuts through the silence like a razorblade, splits that film between us in two.

I can't even force out a denial, like I usually do when I feel like I'm being accused of something. It's an instinctive reaction in me, to reject, to run, but my instincts are all scrambled. I can't run away from this. "What's there to talk about?" My voice comes out more bitter than I intended, and maybe it irks me more than I'd care to admit... that this thing I'd been waiting so long for ended up like this. As some stupid, drunken mistake. "We got drunk, we made a mistake. End of story." I'm so used to closing myself off around her these days. It's a hard habit to break... I don't want to look weak in front of anyone. I can't... I can't have feelings.

Carly's eyebrows raise, eyes widening. "You really think that? Sam... do you not remember?"

I blink at her, confused. "Remember what? We... we kissed, and then... and then... we got to bed somehow..."

Carly's head lowers, hair dangling over her face, and I hear a soft, barely-audible, "Fuck." slip out from her lips. Carly... Carly never swears. It stuns me, and I search my memory frantically, trying to piece together the time between the kiss, and when we collapsed into that bed, feeling warm and hazy. Carly sighs heavily, lower lip wedging in her teeth. "Sam... I don't know if I can say it again."

"S-say what?"

"Close the door."

I acquiesce, crossing hesitantly to her, wavering a few feet away, unsure whether to move closer, or move far, far away. Maybe I should've just ran for it when I closed the door. "Carls, you're scaring the shit out of me." My voice is filled with nervous laughter, shivering and shuddering it's way out of my throat.

"After we..." Carly licks her lips, as if to recall the memory, "After we kissed..." She stops again, as if the next words are a brick wall she's struggling to climb over, and I'd give her a hand if I wasn't trapped behind my own, wondering what was on the other side. She tries again, trying a different approach. "Sam, you're my best friend."

My heart sinks. I've heard so many of these speeches before. Usually in the movies that Carly makes me watch, and I suddenly feel such a strong pulse of regret. Why couldn't I just go and kiss someone else? I'm sure there would be plenty of takers... there always are when you're drunk. That's what I usually do when I'm on the verge of kissing her, of telling her. I distract myself with someone else's lips, in the hopes that they'll clear her out of my heart. But they never do, and I fucked things up this time. Really though, I don't think I could've ever said no. There's no way out of that situation that I wouldn't regret one way or another, and I almost resent her for putting me in it. Almost.

I wonder if I spilled my heart to her, as we lay there, curled in the dark. If I let slip the words that weighed me down, whispered them to the heartbeat of the bass, Carly's face snuggled into my shoulder. Maybe I thought she was sleeping, maybe I was just tired of carrying them around, locked up tight, and I wish, I _wish_ I could remember, so I could take whatever happened afterwards back.

"I was drunk. I... I shouldn't have... we..." Carly sighs in frustration, pushing her hair back, and it's like she's struggling through her own morass of memory, trying to find the same feeling as last night, when things were so easy to say and to do. Because then, at least, you never thought of the consequences. "Sam, sit."

I obey, perching on the edge of her bed, the distance between us too close and too far at the same time. It's the same feeling as being in a doctor's waiting room... or being in the processing room of the police station. Of waiting to hear your diagnosis, your sentence, and you know the news isn't good. You can feel it throbbing in the base of your skull.

Carly's eyes close, dark lashes fanned underneath. "Sam, when you told me you were a- a lesbian," Her words come out soft and even, like she's reading from a script, hastily scrawled in her head. "It got me thinking." She licks her lips again, fingers knotted in her lap.

I lick my lips too, fingers rattling over my jeans, drumming nervously on the denim. "About?" I choke out, trying to keep the thump of my heart out of voice.

Her eyes open, and they're scared, and sombre, and my heart stops, pauses for a moment before shakily continuing. "About us."

My fingers move to twist in her bedcovers, rumpling the material, knuckles flexing white.

"Sam, last night, after we kissed... I said... I said I..." She sighs in frustration, like the words are so close to the edge of her tongue, but they refuse to be pushed over, and the tension is like nails on a chalkboard, a sick drop that hasn't come yet. "I love you Sam, but... it was more than just a kiss last night." She twists her mouth, eyes flicking over me nervously, unable to meet my eyes. "When you told me you were gay, it got me thinking about us, about... about me. And I realised that... Sam, you're more than just a friend to me. I didn't... I didn't know what that meant then. I don't think it was until last night, when I saw you with Wendy and I was... I was _so _jealous." She laughs a little to herself, hands nursed in her lap. "You have no idea. It was so strong, and all I could think was... was that you're mine. And maybe it was a mistake to kiss you like that, but I don't regret it. I just wish I'd known sooner. I just wish I didn't... I wish you could remember what I said last night. It sounded so much better then."

I run my tongue out over my suddenly dry lips, and it's like I'm deaf, everything silent but for her soft, hesitant voice, like I'm looking through a tunnel, and she's the only thing at the end. I can feel my heartbeat shaking my bones, but I can't hear it thundering in my ears. "Wh-what did I say?" My memory is still straining futilely, poring over that time when her lips left mine, but it's like a skipping record, jumping over and over again.

She shakes her head slightly, eyes still downcast. "You didn't say anything. You just... you just held me." She gnaws at her lower lip, shoulders hanging. "When I saw you with Wendy, it just... woke me up. I just-" Her hands wring over each other in her lap. "I was drunk, and I just wanted to kiss you, and I thought... I thought if- if I did it like that, then you would. That it'd mean nothing, and-"

"It meant something." For a second, I don't even realise it's my voice speaking, low and steady. It's like I've been reeling through my head, grasping at thoughts, Carly's voice streaming by me, and I've finally steadied myself, regained control, snug inside my skin.

Carly's eyes flick up to me suddenly, wide and dark. "Wh-what?"

And this is it, the moment I've always dreamed of, always wanted... and a part of me still wants to run away, to pretend like it's not real, to get things back to how they were, because they were so easy then. But they weren't, they weren't any easier. "Carls..." Now it's my turn to scrabble for the words I want to say, need to say, and I've got a feeling my vocabulary is a lot smaller than Carly's. "I... like you." Her eyebrows furrow down, hands stilling. "I- I _love_ you." The words are sticking, clawing at my throat as they're forced out, and it's not like I've never said that I love her, it's just the words have never come with such effort, with such fear. And maybe just the fact that they're so hard to say is what makes Carly understand that this isn't some casual 'I love you' between friends. This is something painful and raw. Her teeth sink into her lower lip, and she shifts closer, a hand stealing out to where my fingers twist in her bedcovers.

"Sam..."

"I've always wanted you." I swallow hard, muscle in my cheek flexing. My heart is sitting heavily in chest, croaking threadily like some fat toad, squat and damp, throat throbbing as it sings. It's not a good feeling.

Carly's hand strokes along my cheek, fingers finding a place under my chin, and tilting my head up until I'm forced to look at her. Her eyes flick over my face, those lighter strikes of coffee subdued today, and it's like she's seeing me for the first time, as stupid as it sounds. As if she's only now realising that I'm not the Sam I was when we met, that I've grown up, and so has she. And finally, her eyes just come to rest on my lips, and I wonder if she can see them shaking. She doesn't even have to ask this time, and it's not me that leans in, it's her, lips brushing mine softly at first, as if she's still unsure, as if maybe we're still drunk, or this is a dream. I know I've had dreams like this before.

It's like being drunk again. I feel dizzy, like I'm spinning, and Carly's lips are so soft, so warm, so much better than imagination, so much better even than last night. There's no pain hiding behind it, there's meaning, and purpose, and it's _real_. I've wanted her so long, and finally, _finally _she wants me back, and it's so much better than I even dreamed. Everything, every awkward moment and torturous time spent aching over her has been worth it, because I never really thought she'd feel anything back for me. I thought I'd end up another Freddie, tagging along behind her with my tongue hanging out and tail wagging. But she's still kissing me, her hands are on my thighs, and they're so warm, and she smells so good, and it's not perfume, it's not the lingering scent of alcohol, it's her, her skin, her hair, everything. And in the back of my mind, some vague part of me is making a note to thank Wendy.

Whatever happens in the future, doesn't matter. I'm not the kind of person who thinks too hard about what's ahead. I wanted Carly so, so bad, and right now, in this moment, she's mine. Just mine.

**A/N: Please review. I appreciate it ever so much.**


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